


pawns on a chessboard.

by Growtear



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Consensual Underage Sex, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Growtear/pseuds/Growtear
Summary: He will not understand until years later that they were just pawns on the chessboard.
Relationships: Elisabeth Doppler/Noah | Hanno Tauber
Comments: 11
Kudos: 73





	pawns on a chessboard.

**2020.**

Hanno is a believing man.

Not necessarily in religion, rather in a higher being who on a bad day decided to play around with the people and circumstances in Winden. Also, Hanno is a simple man, he does not question the injustice of life, after his mother died giving birth or when the beak made its way through his father's body. Finally, Hanno is a man loyal to his beliefs and to himself and those three qualities are what make him a survivor, in his time or in 2020.

His older self does not give him many details, he knows that Noah says barely enough to ensure that the cycle of events is fulfilled as it should. However, he is not stupid, he sees enough pain and helplessness in his gaze hardened by the passage of time and difficulties. He knows the path ahead will be complicated and he only has three names in his head when he enters the bunker, barely in time to escape death and radiation.

Claudia Tiedemann, Jonas Kahnwald… Elisabeth Doppler.

He has instructions. He knows certain things and understands many others, yet nothing prepares him for his first encounter with the Doppler girl. A first meeting of glances that becomes immediately significant, big bright eyes and in the semi-dark bunker, Hanno barely glimpses the girl's features. Later, when the nuclear plant explodes, the terror of the unknown creeps into her face and the way she holds onto her father are enough to bring out an instinct that Hanno didn't think existed in him. Agnes was always self-reliant, not allowing the feeling of overprotection to creep into Hanno's heart.

In those moments, when the earth shakes and the clatter reminds him of all the passages in the bible that he always refused to believe; Hanno concentrates on the girl, her terrified eyes and the trembling of her body. All those hours are spent with her clinging to her father, Peter Doppler, who seems desperate to protect his daughter from what is happening meters above.

Hanno hopes to never know that despair, but something in the way his heart beats every time Elisabeth hides her face in her father's neck tells him that he shouldn't expect anything because fate has other plans for him. How that girl manages to stir up sensations in just a few minutes after meeting her, he does not know. He supposes that Adam was right, everything is connected and perhaps he has been connected with that girl forever and ever, an invisible red thread that has crossed time and space.

It takes hours for the ground to stop shaking and the lights inside the bunker to stabilize. They continue to hear almost infernal noises but Hanno takes the opportunity to focus well on his surroundings. His breath falters when he looks at Regina. His father didn't talk much about his grandmother, at least not with him. He remembers that there was a time when his father had been more open, when the three of them, Bartosz, Silja and himself, would sit down to eat, almost oblivious to everything that had to do with sects and time travel. Silja spoke of the mother she did not quite remember (she spoke with more reserve about the woman who raised her, barely showing the incredible love and respect she felt for that nameless woman) and Bartosz shared anecdotes about the family he left behind (not for his own will). One particularly nostalgic night after Silja's death, Bartosz had shared something with Hanno about Regina.

"She must be dead," he had said regretfully, and Hanno saw him cry a few tears. The guilt he has carried since the murder of his father is present when he details his grandmother sitting, with Claudia Tiedemann's arms surrounding her protectively. Thin, pale, with almost nonexistent hair and life a moment away from leaving her. Why would Claudia take her there, prolonging her suffering? He doesn't know, but he suspects that it has to do with the same feeling he witnessed in Peter Doppler: parental love, a concept almost forgotten by Hanno.

The only missing piece in that depressing puzzle is Jonas Kahnwald but it is not a factor that worries him at the moment. Noah said that he would meet him later, and among other things, he also mentioned a friendship and a betrayal, and the resentment and sadness with which he said it was enough to know that he would not speak more. Still, during the worst of times, Hanno wonders how Jonas will survive outside the bunker.

When darkness is present again, he assumes that at least one day has passed. There are some tremors that seem to be the aftermath of the explosion and Peter and Claudia have talked in the last hours about when it would be wise to go out. None of them carry the necessary equipment and although they have some food and water, it will be worn down in no time. Regina seems on the brink of collapse, but maintains her stoic and almost proud posture and Hanno feels a sudden appreciation for a woman he will never fully know.

He doesn't like to think of the “what if”, but as he watches his grandmother sigh quietly, his mind offers him a place and a space where he finds his family, in peace and together. His paradise.

Elisabeth, however, is another story. The girl is dedicated to categorize everything, something that keeps her mind occupied, away from whatever happens on the surface. While Peter and Claudia whisper heatedly, Elisabeth reads labels and writes something in a small notebook. Still, Hanno knows, it's not enough at all. He also knows what to do and waits until the right moment to intervene in the discussion Doppler has with Tiedemann.

A can slips from Elisabeth's hands, rolling to his feet. Hanno takes it, aware that the girl is watching him with more curiosity than fear. When he entered the bunker he was the target of inquisitive and aggressive looks, something natural knowing that he was a stranger to all of them. No one asked or spoke to him during those hours, concerned with their respective relatives. None of that mattered until then. His first contact with her. And Hanno thinks he can do something to alleviate the suspicion and possible uncertainty that he surely inspires.

Silja taught him little about sign language, but assumes that it is enough for what he has to do. He never knew why his mother seemed so insistent on teaching him something that seemed useless on his time, but now he thanks her for those daytime lessons. Carefully, looking into her eyes with something he hopes is reassuring, Hanno leans over to Elisabeth, who is looking at him with the same insightful look that surprised him the first time they met. He offers her the can, with a half-smile and Elisabeth takes it, tilting her head and making her blond hair fall over her shoulders, hiding her face a bit. She says thank you with a nod and Hanno moves her hands slowly: _“you're welcome”._

She opens her eyes almost comically and gifts him a smile. To his surprise Hanno feels a blush rise up his neck. Alarms go off in his mind and he decides it's time to get out of there. Elisabeth looks at him confused but Hanno pretends not to notice anything as he approaches Tiedemann and Doppler with determined steps.

They both interrupt whatever they were saying and look at him, suspicious and expectant. Hanno prefers that to facing a little girl and if a voice similar to Agnes's rings out in his head, taunting, Hanno ignores it.

"I think it's time to get out of here," he says, straight to the point. No time to waste words.

Claudia observes him, arching an eyebrow and if Hanno were someone else, that gesture would have intimidated him but he does not escape her hard gaze and at the end, the woman speaks: “Yes, more than a day has passed and it is enough for the radioactive particles to settle.”

Doppler shakes his head, looking in Elisabeth’s direction, who offers Regina a bottle of water: "I'm not going to risk my daughter and you shouldn't risk yours, Claudia, we don't know exactly what happened ... We don't know what is waiting for us outside the bunker.”

"There was an explosion at the nuclear plant," Hanno interrupts, and Peter looks at him reluctantly. “Even so, if fear is directed at them, I think the three of us can go out, inspect the area and you can come back for your daughters when you consider it safe.”

"And who are you?" Claudia asks, and Hanno glances at her.

"Who I am is irrelevant, you can take my advice or keep fighting until you run out of food or water."

Peter looks at Claudia, he knows that it is the most prudent thing to do, and as if to convince him, Hanno speaks calmly: “We have to get out of here before the acid rain.”

That seems to work and Claudia nods slowly, without taking her eyes from Hanno. He knows from that moment that she will never completely trust in him and understands Noah when he realizes that he will not trust her either. Peter also stares at him but does not comment and goes to his daughter, explaining the situation, saying that they must go out to find a true refuge and find the rest of their family.

Hanno comes out first, aware that each will go their own separate ways, even if it isn't for long. The first thing he notices is the sky, covered with thick clouds of an abnormal color and without a trace of sun. He knows it is a fight against time and he has to search enough things to continue surviving. Still, he can't help but wait to see where the Dopplers will go. When they leave, Elisabeth gives her one last curious look and her father urges her to keep walking. They run through the woods and Hanno is after them. He needs to know where Elisabeth will be if he wants to follow the order to protect her at any cost. He realizes that Peter is aware of his presence, but manages to keep a safe distance and soon memorizes the path to what looks like a small caravan, where Peter and Elisabeth rush in.

Hanno takes a deep breath, aware that the real battle begins from that moment, but he is a survivor.

Always has been.

**2020.**

He does what he can to get comfortable in the cave, but the first days everything is confusing and not very encouraging.

The rain begins to fall a day after they emerged from the bunker, barely enough time to collect food, water, clothing, and things Hanno finds useful. It is difficult because not only does he face a fully advanced future compared to 1921, but it is also a future in ashes. He knows he can't get too close to the exclusion zone yet, but the town is still relatively safe. He goes on little excursions, just to get acquainted with the roads, collect things, and spy on the Dopplers from a safe distance.

As the days go by, a routine is imposed. He wakes up early, eats little, does a lot of inspection, and tries to fit in as best he can to the cold, damp walls of the cave. He has already memorized the paths of the forest and also the strategic points of the town. The Tiedemanns are in the old police headquarters, the Dopplers are still in the same caravan and he wants to think that Jonas Kahnwald is within the ruins of his house.

A part of him (primitive and childish), marvels when he looks up and sees what looks like airplanes prowling the town day and night. Then the army arrives and soon the area of greatest danger is severely guarded. Hanno doesn't get too close until he realizes that the Dopplers are targeting that part of town every day. It's not hard to figure out why, which makes Hanno feel helpless. He does not understand how Peter Doppler can subject his daughter to something like that. A girl who just days before had faced a world completely different from her own, without her mother or sister, only with her father as a lifeguard in an aggressive and endless ocean.

Despite his disagreement, he doesn’t try to intervene, watching from the shadows as the girl looks more physically decimated and the dark circles under her eyes and paleness show her mental state. Hanno does what he can until Peter Doppler himself confronts him, almost a month after the apocalypse. They run into one of the military tents, Elisabeth is nowhere to be seen and the irony is that at the time Hanno was just wandering around, taking into account any changes in that new little social order that the army had established.

"I'll warn you only once," Doppler says, grunting as he grasps his forearm tightly, Hanno stares at him, not saying a word. “Stay away from us, I don't know who you are or what year you're from and I don't care, but I'll do whatever it takes to protect Elisabeth.”

He pushes him and Hanno watches him go. It starts to rain and he has nothing to do but to return to the caves. He was surprised by the ferocity in Doppler's eyes and words and knows that the man would never understand that Hanno’s mission is the same as his and he also knows that explaining it would be useless. Hanno remains a stranger and after thinking about it, he comes to the conclusion that the only thing he can do to accomplish his goal is to continue the same routine. Quiet and in the shadows, always attentive to any changes no matter how little and far enough to see the whole picture.

He witnesses how the Doppler girl becomes tougher every day, the light and hope escaping from her eyes. She leaves the military zone tired, sad and angry with life. Still, Hanno is surprised by her strength and when, weeks later, he finds her in Kahnwald’s ruined house, he doesn't expect the ferocity her gaze radiates.

Hanno tries to look as harmless as possible but finds that he doesn't have to try too hard, his defenses and that hard shell that he has built and maintained all those years is of little use because when Elisabeth observes him, Hanno feels like he could do anything for the girl. They exchange a small but important conversation, recalling Noah's voice instructing him to let Elisabeth know where to find him and when Peter shows up, he has a hard time staying calm in the face of the man's resentment.

The words that come out of his mouth are the worst, but he believes them necessary for Peter to realize that nothing could happen to his daughter while she is with Hanno. That there will be someone looking after her after he dies and that Elisabeth will have all the comfort that Hanno can provide for her. The look on Peter's face almost made him regret it. Something in his eyes looks terribly alike to the look his father gave him that fateful day outside the caves.

Omniscient, almost, and Hanno reminds himself that everything will pass as it should.

He watches with resignation as father and daughter leave the house and gives Elisabeth one last look. She turns and gives him a confused look over her shoulder. After that Hanno doesn't linger long at that house, he finds a couple of granola bars and decides to head back to the caves, where laborious work awaits him.

The rain is not merciful and falls in a torrential manner making the cave even colder. The wood fire most days is not enough but little by little Hanno gets used to the bad weather and his sense of survival guides him in the nights where the cold seeps into his bones and soul. He also finds that his previous life makes many things easier for him, the new century arrived with advances but nothing comes without its respective consequences. The comfort that most are used to in him are excesses and he makes his way into that small world based on patience and stoicism.

Nothing helps him avoid nostalgia.

It's funny how the human brain works. At night every thought turns to the life he left behind. His sister, Sic Mundus, the tavern. His very existence before he knew about time travel, when the world was small and nothing was cosmically important. Only him, a human being who would pass inconsequential for the history of the Earth.

Between the rock walls, Hanno is just another speck of dust and that thought is claustrophobic until he remembers his purpose. He breathes. His world has an axis again, Elisabeth Doppler appearing out of the haze of his lurid thoughts and he struggles to keep it that way for the rest of the days.

Until, returning to the cave after a trip to collect food, he finds his axis. Trembling, with blood on her face and eyes wild. Wet from head to toe, dust clinging to her blond locks and Hanno thinks that this is the decisive moment, the moment that he was waiting for but that, in an intimate place of his being, he did not want it to happen. The moment when his fate and Elisabeth's are forever intertwined as a result of Peter Doppler's death.

He kneels in front of her, looking into her terrified eyes and crouched posture. Understanding that without any help she found her way to the cave, sitting for maybe hours, trying to process whatever it is that she experienced and Hanno's blood boils at the thought of all that.

" _May I come closer?_ " He points out and Elisabeth seems to finally focus her gaze, her eyes fill with tears and she begins to cry, bowing her head and emitting sounds that will remain etched in Hanno's mind for the rest of his life.

He doesn't know what to do, lost in the doubt of waiting for Elisabeth's consent or following his instincts and comforting her. At the end he slowly reaches out, taking the hand that Elisabeth has on her lap. It turns out to be the right move because she holds on tight, finding comfort in that simple gesture, sobbing even more. Little by little the whimpers turn into long exhales of pain and Hanno focuses on checking for injuries. With a light squeeze to their clasped hands, Hanno catches Elisabeth’s attention, who looks at him with her eyes still full of tears; then he points to her forehead, where she seems to have a cut that Hanno doesn't know how deep it is.

“ _May l?_ ” And Elisabeth nods slowly, letting his hand go regretfully.

He approaches carefully, trying not to startle her with a sudden movement. In the dim light, Elisabeth looks like a wounded fox and Hanno keeps repeating, like a mantra: everything has a purpose. He sits up close enough and with his fingertips, examines the cut almost clinically. He gets up and Elisabeth gasps instantly. Hanno is quick to reassure her, pointing out that he has to clean the wound; the girl nods weakly and Hanno goes to get cloths and some bottled water that he managed to steal the first few days, he also takes a bottle of alcohol from a medicinal reserve that he has not touched until that day. He returns as fast as he can to Elisabeth's side, who seems lost in her mind and makes no gestures or sounds when Hanno passes the wet cloth over the wound, nor when he places another cloth with alcohol on the cut. It is not a deep wound and he thinks that in a matter of days she will start to heal, giving him a sense of relief that disappears when he understands that hard days are coming for Elisabeth.

Outside, the rain intensifies, hitting the ground hard, like some sort of revenge for the poisoning in the Earth’ system. Behind the clouds the sun begins to make way for the moon but the animals remain sheltered from the climatic violence. Eventually Hanno offers Elisabeth water to clean herself, clothes and she nods, barely looking at him above the haze of her pain.

Hanno lights the fire and curses himself a thousand times for not being able to offer something better at times like that. He does not turn around until Elisabeth tugs on his shirt and although she no longer has any traces of blood or mud, her appearance continues to be as bleak as a few hours ago. Knowing that he is unprepared for a true sign language conversation, Hanno grabs a small notebook and pencil, something he found on one of his early expeditions.

" _Do you have another wound?_ " he asks and Elisabeth shakes her head.

Relieved, Hanno opens a can of food, bringing it closer to Elisabeth but the girl denies violently and he decides not to push her boundaries. The only thing she accepts is water and although it is something that worries him, he knows that she needs his space. Hanno never considered himself meddlesome and has always bragged about using his head before his heart and that is no exception. Although Elisabeth has come to him, Hanno is still a stranger and before pretending to have a good relationship with her, first he has to establish one and pushing the limits of the girl would not help his goal.

The night is eternal, Elisabeth is lying in the sleeping bag that Hanno gave her, with her back to him and wrapped in sheets. Hanno can see how, during the night, she does not sleep and her body trembles slightly, more from the tears that she still shed than from the cold. He doesn't sleep either, focusing all his attention on Elisabeth, aware that he can't do more than wait and be there when she needs him. He thinks that tomorrow is a new day, with new possibilities and a new reality for which he has been preparing all those years.

The machinery of destiny activates again, a soft tic tac that echoes in the quantum confines.

**2021.**

Hanno arrives at the town at sunset. He's more careful after the first raid and things haven't totally returned to the fucked-up normality the military had established a few months after the apocalypse. There is too much tension in the environment and Hanno prefers to continue exploring the ruined houses but little by little, food, water and essential objects are becoming scarce. He has no choice but to go from time to time to the military camp that already seems more like a small settling. He exchanges the rabbits that he managed to hunt for potatoes, carrots and a couple of tomatoes, the young woman who attends that place looks at him with intensity but Hanno only thinks that Elisabeth will be happy to add something to her rabbit stew that only consists of the rabbit. As she thanks him, the girl blushes but Hanno has already moved away, impatient to reach the caves.

He leaves the camp, the rain is already starting and Hanno covers his face with the red bandana. He walks down the road to the town again and manages to recognize the figure of Claudia Tiedemann approaching. The woman wears the hood on and recognizes him when they are close enough to each other. She looks at him suspiciously but nods a greeting and Hanno reciprocates, glancing at her as she walks past him. It is uncomfortable, most of the time he sees her and Jonas Kahnwald but they are not aware of his presence. Hanno is used to being and moving like a shadow and likes to know where the two most important people are in all of Winden apart from Elisabeth.

In the end, he decides to go ahead with his plan, inspecting a couple of houses, looking for something for Elisabeth. Since she officially came into his life, Hanno cares about making the cave more than just rocks, seeking to transform the place into something where she can feel not so isolated from the world she left behind. It is difficult but Hanno is persistent.

In the third house he finds a book of medicinal plants. Elisabeth, more than half a year after the apocalypse, began collecting books and soon her space had been filled with them. They were useful because not only did she learn, but they were used so Hanno could expand his vocabulary in sign language.

He puts the book in his backpack and leaves in the direction of the forest, aware that his search has taken longer than normal and the rain is already falling hard. When he reaches the entrance of the cave, he sees a couple of buckets almost full so he carries them easily and enters, walking almost blind. He already knows the way as if it were the palm of his hand and soon he sees the flickering of the fire.

Elisabeth is on her sleeping bag and looks up only when Hanno gets close enough. He smiles at her and Hanno can see the ointment she uses to treat the cuts in her hands from the stones in the tunnel. At first he wasn't convinced that she could help with the excavation, he felt it was his responsibility as the man and the older of the two but Elisabeth had closed the subject arguing that she needed a purpose and that he would not stop her with his obsolete ideas. It turns out to be the best decision because he has gone further with her than when he was alone. Elisabeth is small and manages to clear enough space for Hanno to take care of the hard part. Even so, the stones are sharp and whenever they finish his hands are sore and hers especially with small cuts, her sensitive and fine skin not suitable for that type of work.

He puts down the buckets and takes off his backpack, Elisabeth stands up and asks him if everything was okay on his little excursion. Hanno realizes that it doesn't take that long to sign his ideas but he's still slow compared to her. Even so, the girl is patient and Hanno describes what he managed to exchange, taking out the vegetables and finally surprises her with the book. Elisabeth abandons the potatoes she was examining, her smile beaming as she takes the book Hanno offers her. She flips through it quickly, pausing when an illustration catches her eye, then looks at him and signs a thank you that Hanno catalogs in his memory with the others he has collected over the months with her.

The beginning of their relationship, though chaotic by the terms in which Elisabeth came to him, was never complicated. Hanno's own nature goes hand in hand with Elisabeth's at the best of times and enables him to face things maturely at the worst

.

The best were those, when they talked by the fire, with the aroma of rabbit stew making its way through the scents of humidity and dirt. For a few moments, Hanno could imagine that they were in another place and in another time, where their friendship would flourish without always being on the edge of survival. Elisabeth's easy, childish laugh and his own, more reserved, echoed through the labyrinth of the cave and that little space was the safest bunker.

At worst, Hanno found himself discovering new sides of his personality. He had not been a very caring person, he and Agnes loved each other in their own way but they did not have time for long talks about feelings or brotherly hugs that made you feel safe and at peace. The death of his mother, the war, the tavern, Sic Mundus… Hanno had realized that he had never had a moment of peace since Silja died and it showed in his character.

Two days after finding Elisabeth in the caves, while Hanno was preparing the food, she finally abandoned the sleeping bag to go over and ask him, heavily, to take her to say goodbye to her father. Hanno still didn't know the circumstances of Peter's death and when they both reached the caravan, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Elisabeth's face instantly dislodged. He motioned for her to wait him but in a display of incredible poise and bravery she shook her head, clinging to Hanno's raincoat. Something akin to pride and a fierce need to protect her took over his body and he decided to help her overcome whatever awaited them inside.

The first thing they noticed was the smell and immediately afterwards Hanno identified Peter's body, rigid, wide-eyed with the knife still at his neck. Elisabeth clenched her fists and Hanno gave her time to compose herself. A few seconds later he noticed the second body. The head is shattered and everything is a mess between hair, skin, bone and rotten blood. It took him another second to analyze and fit the pieces, turning to see Elisabeth, who seemed to summon all her strength and walked slowly towards her father. Hanno detailed her, impressed, thinking about how they seemed to have more in common than he thought, Elisabeth's slender fingers carefully closed her father's eyes and stroked his face for the last time and Hanno's breath caught when he realized that those small hands were the ones that left the other man lifeless.

As if in a trance, he watched the ritual Elisabeth performs. The girl bowed her head and touched her father's cold forehead, muttering a few silent words, and the next moment she looked at Hanno with an intensity that a ten-year-old girl shouldn't know. Too much pain and anger and sadness in a pair of green eyes and Hanno understood her with a clarity that caught him off guard. Elisabeth didn't even look at the other body and left the caravan to make room for Hanno, who pulled out Peter's body, wrapped in a sheet that she found in storage. It was almost a ceremonial act, something that triggered memories of Bartosz and Hanno had to remind herself who he's doing all this for. It is in front of the grave dug by both that Hanno spoke to her for the first time about Paradise. In the deathly silence of the place where Elisabeth decided to bury Peter Doppler, Hanno dropped one more shield, drawing the girl's attention and slowly beginning to explain what became a mantra for him after all those years. His compass in life and what had sustained him in the difficult periods of his time. Elisabeth looked at him, crying silently and Hanno ran his hand through her dirty hair.

So, when Elisabeth had nightmares and cried for her father, Hanno found himself protective, kind, loving, and caring. Never exceeding the limits she set with a single glance and respecting the way she seemed to hide from everyone. Hanno offered his shoulder when she wanted to be close with someone whom she had learned to trust and, over time, appreciate. The only person who was for her in that desolate town. It hadn't been easy, but they had both make it work and she knew he had earned her trust when, on a lightning night, Elisabeth explained why there was a second body in the caravan.

Hanno looked at her attentively, swallowing his bile, making sure nothing betrayed the anger that consumed him for a few moments and swore to Elisabeth that no one would ever hurt her again. She tilted her head, considering his words and nodded slowly. Her gaze was clouded with fears that seemed to resurface and Hanno was finally able to identify them, accepting that not only memories haunted her, but remorse. He assured her that she had done nothing wrong, that she should have defended herself and that the man deserved what she did; he knows she didn't believe it, but Elisabeth let go an imaginary weight that had settled in her life like a darkness overshadowing her vivacity.

On the other hand, Hanno felt a hatred grow in his heart that joins other resentments he was trying to eradicate. After that night, while Elisabeth sleeps, Hanno finds himself spiteful and with a tendency to entertain and grow the negative feelings he had kept at bay. His mind becomes a black space and when, hours later, he finds himself digging carelessly, feeling his muscles burn from the effort and blood gushing from his injured fingers, only Elisabeth can calm him.

He does not hear her approach, with his back to the entrance, breathing heavily. He thinks about what could have happened, remembering the rotten blood and the white of the skull peeking out in the parts where the skin yielded due to the violence of Elisabeth's sense of survival. He sees white and that's when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns abruptly and meets a worried green gaze. That day he no longer digs, watching carefully how Elisabeth heals each wound, cleaning the blood and dirt, cleaning the hatred and the fire from his veins. The girl calms him down and returns him to the place of serenity that Hanno strives to maintain.

He knows that he can easily be consumed with hatred.

He also knows he had to make a conscious effort not to give in to his worst feelings, always occupying his mind with a purpose. He digs with purpose, searches with purpose, hunts with purpose and provides with purpose. The passage, Elisabeth, the quest for Paradise become what Agnes, Sic Mundus and the tavern were in 1921.

When Elisabeth, drenched in sweat and dirt, finds the passage doors, Hanno feels one of its pillars sway. The faith in his beliefs becomes obsolete for a second, completely overshadowed by the despair of absence. The link with the Universe is broken and he does not know how to repair it. Elisabeth looks at him with intensity and Hanno thinks that it is only because of her that he does not sink into the uncertainty of the future.

He is aware that he will return to his time, he is aware of what awaits him but for the first time he contemplates the magnitude of that enormous paradox.

At night, with the firelight illuminating them, the claustrophobic sound of the rain, and the feeling of defeat, Elisabeth asks him to tell her about Paradise again. Hanno looks at her, the dirt sticking to her pale cheeks, her blond hair almost straight from the weight of dirt and moisture; her hands swollen with old and new cuts. Above all, he looks at her green eyes, understanding, nostalgic, hopeful. He understands that she is not asking to do that for her, but for him. He understands that Elisabeth has gotten to know him better in those months than his own father in the years he spent with him.

He appears confident when he moves his hands, casting shadows on the cold, hard floor of the cave. Elisabeth watches his gestures, tilting her head and Hanno can almost picture her, in another time, dreamy and with wild imagination. He repeats what he said to her for the first time in front of her father's grave and in the end, she nods and they look at each other for a while, understanding that they are together, that they will obtain their Paradise, that they cannot lose themselves.

They will not lose themselves.

**2023.**

The military establishment is not as crowded as other days. There are rumors that an extremist group of survivors wants to assault it again and the few people who converge there decide to avoid it for the next few days. Hanno knows that the militia will leave the area in little time, the wall is almost completely finished and he supposes that in those moments more than ever, it will be Elisabeth and him against the world.

He does not stop until he reaches the residential area of Winden. He has long searched through the rubble and ruins for something he can give Elisabeth for her birthday that is a few weeks away. It is not easy because Hanno is not familiar with the possible preferences of a girl like her. He would like to give her many things to make her life more comfortable, but that is out of his reach and Hanno does not want to dwell on a subject that overshadows him. He knows he haven't even gotten to the middle of everything he would like to know about her, something that tells him what would be appropriate for someone who used to have everything.

He searches between drawers, lifting debris and dusting things. He finds clothes that are not so worn, for her and him, but still cannot find the object that rings in his mind as the right one. If someone told him, years before, that he would be doing that, Hanno would not have believed it. It is curious how the presence of Elisabeth has changed him in many aspects and has intensified many others. Hanno doesn't remember exactly when he last celebrated a birthday, but his dimmest memories include his parents (alive, together, happy), Franziska and Magnus, and a bread that Silja made especially for Hanno.

He can almost taste the bread and it takes him by surprise, he feels like his heart fails a beat and clenches his teeth. Hanno secures the backpack to his shoulders and continues his search, fully determined not to get carried away by the sweet taste of nostalgia.

It is after searching in three houses that Hanno finds exactly what he did not know he was looking for. He rummages through a drawer in what appears to be the home of an elderly couple, the dressing table being the last thing left to check. He goes to the next drawer and opens it; in his mind something clicks instantly. Hanno remembers Elisabeth, sitting in her sleeping bag, wrapped in one of the big sweaters they recovered from the caravan. She is distracted and does not realize that Hanno looks at her tired profile as she runs her fingers through blond hair, undoing the knots, sometimes delicately and sometimes with an anxious brusqueness that Hanno saw when she was tired of digging the tunnel.

So, when Hanno finds a beautiful silver hairbrush in that drawer, he doesn't think much, determined to take that and give it to Elisabeth on her birthday. It is a valuable object, with delicate finishes on the silver handle and the bristles look almost intact despite the passage of time. He has not seen Elisabeth very concerned about her appearance, but hair is something that he sees her taking care almost all the time, tying it in long blonde braids that end up full of dirt and stones.

Hanno puts the brush away, wrapping it in a clean piece of cloth. He leaves the house with renewed spirits and realizes that his search brought him very close to the Kahnwald house. He hasn't seen Jonas in several weeks and knows he lost the battle against his curiosity when his feet carry him to the entrance.

The place seems even more bleak than its surroundings. Like a worn paint. Hanno enters cautiously, holding the gun tightly inside his coat. He listens carefully and until he is sure that there is no danger, he lowers his backpack and leaves it in the dining room. There are photos scattered on the floor, dusty or consumed by humidity. He is curious to see what memories they portray of the boy who will become Adam but Hanno does not have time because a dry sound alerts him immediately.

He climbs the stairs quickly, caught in a feeling of foreboding. He does not understand where that feeling came from and will only understand years later, when all the pieces fit into the terrible puzzle of his life. Hanno opens the door and sees Jonas's body convulse, little spasms that would have led him to his death had it not been for his fate, already being sealed by something more powerful than willpower: time.

Hanno saves him, barely resisting the anger and frustration he feels at seeing his future and needed savior attempting to kill himself. He thinks of Elisabeth, her rough and scarred hands from digging a tunnel that was supposed to lead them to Paradise. He thinks of her restless nights, when nightmares haunted her in the shadows of the cave, her tears for her dead family, and the countless times when Hanno wanted to be what she really needed, in order to get rid of the sadness that sometimes imposed itself over her natural light.

As Jonas complains for his cursed fate, Hanno feels like he could beat that ‘chosen one’ down. If he died, what use would Elisabeth's pain have been? His pain? The countless destinations interrupted by violent deaths. Silja, Bartosz, Peter and Charlotte Doppler. Names that Hanno remembered over and over again throughout those years in that future that seemed stagnant, rotting little by little.

Still, something akin to empathy surprises him when Jonas aims at his head, with every intention of challenging time and God. When Hanno explains the circumstances of his life, the boy's gesture breaks down. It becomes pure desolation and pain, suddenly crushed by the weight of that knot that remains immovable, holding them all through the years. Jonas Kahnwald seems to shrug, his shoulders slumped and if Hanno were someone else, he might have comforted him, pitied him.

But Hanno is a man made of resolution and purpose. He understands that he must make Jonas see reason, pushing him in the opposite direction he wants to go. Preventing his death as many times as necessary to ensure that everything Hanno and Elisabeth have gone through is for the sole purpose of reaching the Paradise that Kahnwald's oldest-self promised him. The same resolution leads him to push Jonas to his limit. They leave the house in the cave’s direction, after Hanno explained finding the passage. Jonas follows him, silent, there is some emotion in his eyes, probably at the prospect of a possible way out of that cursed future. He doesn't ask questions and Hanno doesn't stop to think about anything until he finds himself in front of Elisabeth, questioning painted on her face.

He hears a ragged gasp and Jonas walks past him. Hanno observes how the man and Elisabeth meet halfway, looking at each other for a few seconds, realizing that what they have in front of each other is tangible... real. They join in a hug that causes an unfamiliar feeling in Hanno. One that he doesn't like at all. Jonas holds onto Elisabeth and she cries, and it's a moment full of a meaning that Hanno can't quite share. He runs his tongue over his palate and the bitter taste in his mouth surprises him. There's a pressure in his chest that makes it hard to breathe and Hanno doesn't realize his fists are clenched until Jonas turns, pulling Elisabeth away for a moment and glaring at him.

"What is Elisabeth doing with you?" he says and Hanno would be surprised at the sudden change in all his body language if he weren't busy; taming the part of his personality that yells at him to demand Jonas not get close to Elisabeth again for the rest of his life.

He forces himself to calm down and succeeds when his gaze meets Elisabeth's, crystal clear and excited. Hanno manages to tame the voices in his head, regaining his serenity. Jonas looks at him accusingly and Hanno realizes how the situation must look, especially after remembering that Noah and Jonas have crossed paths before and not on friendly terms.

"I haven't hurt her, if that's what you think," he answers and Jonas looks at him suspiciously, almost hiding Elisabeth from an invisible evil, “I would never dare to harm her in any way.”

Elisabeth seems to pick up something of their conversation because she firmly pushes Jonas's arm away, causing both of them to pay attention to her.

" _I think you should explain to me what's going on,"_ she interjects, waving her hands roughly and Hanno feels like he's being reprimanded. The thought is curious and any remnants of some negative feeling vanish under Elisabeth's green gaze.

Hanno explains, skipping the part where he found Jonas hanging from a beam. The boy looks at them with a frown and when he understands that the explanation is over, he intervenes again.

"How long has she been here with you?" he asks questioningly, and Hanno resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"Almost three years," he answers and Elisabeth walks away, taking something from her sleeping bag that Hanno identifies as her notebook. He watches her jot something down, pressing the pencil too hard on the paper, frowning in concentration.

Jonas opens his mouth but Elisabeth cuts him off, handing him the notebook. Doubtful, Jonas reads whatever Elisabeth has written and there is a moment when Hanno watches the boy's eyes go soft, giving Elisabeth a contemplative look, and she nods heavily.

" _Does he know the passage is not open yet?_ " Elisabeth points out, a bit of frustration etched at the corners of her lips.

" _That's exactly why I brought him_ ," Hanno answers and Jonas looks at him carefully, not understanding.

"Can you sign?" Jonas asks, and there is something like surprise in the question that makes Hanno proud.

"Yeah, but I didn't bring you here to socialize," he snaps back and Elisabeth rolls her eyes. She has learned to read Hanno's body language, and while it is often helpful, there are times when Hanno feels like he can't hide anything from her questioning gaze. “You have to see the passage.”

Jonas seems to come out of a surreal world, his face turning serious. He sees Elisabeth for a few seconds and bows his head, taking the notebook from her hands. Hanno feels like he can see red, bites the inside of his cheek and for a few moments is carried away by something that he would recognize as jealousy if he had experienced it before. Jonas hands whatever he wrote on the sheet to Elisabeth and she snorts in agreement.

Hanno decides that it is time to go and goes through the maze that is the group of caves in Winden. He remembers walking each of those cold and hard roads with Bartosz and those memories darken his spirits more. He hears Jonas’s hurrying footsteps behind him and when they reach the entrance to the passage, the boy opens his mouth.

"You didn't answer my question." There is an authoritative tone to his voice that reminds him of Adam, but Hanno quickly dodges that thought. “What is Elisabeth doing with you?

"My mission is to protect her and I couldn't do it while being away from her." They both begin the laborious path to the passage and Hanno's mind is flooded with those endless hours with Elisabeth, digging almost desperately. “She came to me after the death of her father and we have been together ever since.”

Jonas gasps for a moment, surprised to hear that Peter Doppler had survived the blast. He seems to consider something but shakes his head and before he can continue his questioning he stops, the metal door of the passage smashed in front of them. His gesture breaks down and Hanno sympathizes with the feeling Jonas projects in his gaze.

It is somewhat disconcerting. Adam always seemed distant and oblivious to any emotion and it was something Hanno respected and idolized equally. Now, as he sees his younger version, he can't help but wondering what the future holds for Jonas to become that old man. He also remembers Noah and his heart is seized with a terrible foreboding that Jonas interrupts when he tries to get out of there. They don't speak on the way back to where he and Elisabeth have their little settlement and is surprised when Jonas grabs his arm, stopping him.

"Elisabeth says you saved her," he begins, his blue eyes doubtful. “She says that you are good to her and that you are the only company she has, but I don't think she should be with you.”

Hanno's mouth is bitter and it takes all of his will and patience not to yell at Jonas that he doesn't have the right to mess with Elisabeth or him.

"You don't know what we've been through," he says indignantly. “While you were trying to take your life, Elisabeth and I have fought for hers. You think you have the right to say that because you knew her before all this crap happened but you really don't. I would never, ever do something to hurt her and if I knew that she would be better off with someone else, believe me, I would have taken her to that place myself, but there isn't and as long as it doesn't exist, she will be with me.”

"I don't think it's your decision," Jonas contradicts, and Hanno clenches his fists and teeth. “Elisabeth came to you because she thought she was alone but now has something that she did not have in these years... She has options and I would not do anything to harm her either, I could offer her different options than this cold cave and your fanaticism.”

Hanno does not know when his anger overtakes him, he is suddenly aware that he and Jonas have begun to hit each other but all his reasoning and temperance of character are clouded with the satisfaction of Jonas's sound of pain, when Hanno's fist hits his jaw. He doesn't enjoy enough the victory because Jonas seems to want to unleash all his fury on Hanno as well. They fight for what seems like an eternity, leaving blood, sweat and resentment on the rough floor of the cave, and Hanno knows that those feelings are not exactly directed to the other.

“Fanaticism?!” Hanno spits while holding Jonas by the collar of his coat, he has more physical strength and that gives him the advantage in that unexpected fight. “And what do you hope to offer her if a few hours ago you were hanging from a beam?”

Jonas inhales deeply, trying to shake Hanno off of him, knowing he's the loser in that showdown but refusing to give up. "Still, this is no life for her! Living in this hole, forcing her to dig out of the rubble a hope that you didn't have to place in her in the first place, and all why?… Because it is your purpose? Open your eyes, that damn passage will never open!”

Hanno is about to lash out at Jonas again when they both hear footsteps echoing through their labored breaths and poison turned into words. They look at each other and although they both do not know it, a silent pact is formed; one that will last as long as their friendship. They immediately separate, so as not to worry Elisabeth, aware that she is the last to be blamed for everything that happens or does not happen around them. Jonas barely has time to wipe the blood running from the corner of his mouth, and Hanno adjusts his clothes and hair.

When Elisabeth finds them, she scowls and Hanno knows they haven't fooled her. Her clear gaze details him from head to toe and then focuses on Jonas. Her face takes on a serious and angry tone, adding years to her barely twelve.

" _What were you guys fighting for?_ " She waves her hands violently and Jonas looks to Hanno for translation.

" _It's nothing, Beth, I think I should have told Kahnwald earlier that the passage didn't work._ " Hanno ignores Jonas's confused face and sees Elisabeth look at him with empathy.

She takes the notebook out of one of her pockets and Hanno watches her write to Jonas that they must not lose hope that one day the passage will open. Jonas sighs quietly, nodding in Elisabeth's direction, then, to Hanno's displeasure, Jonas writes a blood-curdling question.

_"Would you like to come live with me? After all, the bunker is technically yours."_

Hanno watches her read the sentence once, twice, three times, then Elisabeth looks up with a small smile on her lips. She stares at him and then Hanno watches how Elisabeth's mind travel to some point beyond that cave, something that is not Jonas or Hanno or herself. He has seen her do that many times before, especially the first two years, in which the pain of everything that had happened got the better of her. Hanno would have given anything to know what was going on in the girl's head but before he had a chance to ask, she would come back to him. She always came back.

That time is no different and she refocuses on Hanno, then writes: _"I will stay with Noah, Jonas, I appreciate your proposal but I will not go anywhere without him."_

Hanno breathes again. Jonas shrugs his shoulders a little, resigned but smiles at Elisabeth and takes her hands in an affectionate gesture. It's a gentle squeeze but one that puts in check what Hanno didn't want to rationalize. He understands that never, in those three years, he had competed with someone for Elisabeth's attention and the fact that the only person who really mattered to him in what was left of the world could favor another person with her affection, was something that surpassed Hanno's best judgement.

At night, hours after Jonas left with a firm promise to return, Elisabeth sits next to him, firelight blazing in her large, innocent eyes. Hanno's heart clenches, full of affection, understanding and sweetness, when she tells him, with well-defined gestures what seems to be the most precious of all the secrets.

_"When the passage opens, we'll be there…"_ Elisabeth, with all her infinite tenderness and hasty maturity, peers at him carefully, signing the last three words slowly. _“You and I.”_

He and she. Hanno recomposes his compass and knows he has to do what it takes to get her to Paradise.

**2025.**

By the time he and Jonas arrive at the bunker, he has lost enough blood that Jonas, the quiet, pragmatic boy, has panic painted on his face and body. Hanno collapses heavily, his mind seems like a dark, calm sea into which he begins to sink now that the adrenaline is leaving his body.

He can’t distinguish Jonas, who seems to shout something Hanno doesn't understand. He feels his eyes heavy and supposes that the irony to which God subjects him is that he can still feel terror of death, knowing that he cannot die yet. His mind is full of many ideas that do not finish tracing completely and memories that at some point, he had forgotten.

He sees Jonas put a cloth on the wound on his abdomen, which keeps gushing blood. Hanno can't help but watch as Kahnwald tries to stop the bleeding without much success. The scent of blood fills the bunker and Hanno wrinkles his nose; for a few seconds he is transported to 1921 and the peak is heavy in his hands, even more so when he finishes piercing Bartosz's body and begins to realize the reality of his sin. He remembers his father's dead weight when Hanno dragged him to what would become his resting place, and also remembers the tears he shed with Noah, who offered him not comfort but a piece of learning.

Noah offered the path that would eventually lead him to the teenager who waits for him in the caves, surely worried because it is already dusk and he has not arrived. Hanno berates himself, angry at his thoughts for thinking about what he didn't want to think. He doesn't want to think about Elisabeth when he's in a near-death state because everything has a bad taste of premonition.

Even so, his brain decides otherwise and responds with the image of Elisabeth, smiling because she has successfully planted basil and carrots. Elisabeth, who blushed to her ears when she informed him that her period had come for the first time, causing a clumsy mess that Hanno finds totally hilarious in those moments. Elisabeth, with her crystalline laugh and bitter tears, with her long blonde hair and her stubbornness to wear only the oversized sweaters that Franziska left behind. Elisabeth who in those five years has filled him with more happiness than anything he knew before her.

The same Elisabeth who walks into the bunker, her angry face turning into panic when her gaze meets Hanno's. He wants to speak, reassure her, but his hands do not respond and he tries to compose a smile that hopes, is not a dying gesture. The last thing Hanno sees is someone else entering the bunker and Elisabeth's still childish face, stunned by a new tragedy in her life.

He closes his eyes and dreams.

His mother appears, with her compassionate face and loving manners, the way she could make Bartosz smile without much effort. Hanno liked to watch her wash clothes, when she, his father, Magnus and Franziska went to the river with a small bundle of clothes in some baskets and food in others. He remembers the scent of soap, how cold it felt on the riverbank, Silja's dark locks that escaped from the tight braid that she usually used. He also remembers how Magnus played with him, while Bartosz took things out of the food basket, an excuse for secretly giving Hanno a spoonful of homemade jam.

Franziska once told him that Silja had changed Bartosz in the best way and, after her death, in the worst. When Hanno's resentment grew enough for him to take a surname other than Tiedemann, Magnus told him how he couldn't blame his father for the tough person he had become. Bartosz had been the most empathetic of all, according to his friends; and that had been his undoing when he held the body of his dead wife in his arms.

Silja had been the center piece of their little family, the anchor and faith of Bartosz, Hanno's loving and understanding mother; and also, the woman who had a melancholy aura when his father caressed her scar in an intimate gesture that Hanno watched in secret, when he spied on his parents instead of being asleep.

He never understood how one person could change so much for another until he met Elisabeth.

Hanno had found in her a purpose first and then a friend who knew him better than anyone else. His bad cooking, his mania for sorting things by size, the way he tried to do his best, and his resolve that she claimed was stubbornness. In those years, Hanno had seen her live through the last of her childhood, peppered with trauma and little hope, and become a strong teenager, with an impetuous character that not only kept Hanno at bay, but also Jonas.

He couldn't imagine life without Elisabeth and yet he knows that there is something he is not seeing completely.

Something that is hidden in the shadows of his happiness and that he sometimes experiences when Jonas puts his arm around Elisabeth's shoulder or someone in the military camp sees her in some way that Hanno would find different. Something that makes him smile when he thinks of her, that made him strive to learn sign language quickly. Something that fills him up in a way unlike anything else.

Hanno opens his eyes. He feels his body burning up, his mouth tastes metallic and struggles to pass saliva, not to mention the sharp pain he feels throughout his abdomen. Hanno doesn't have time to complain because he blinks and Elisabeth is at his side, stroking his forehead. Hanno can see her beautiful face turned to anguish when she turns to get someone else's attention.

_Don't look at anyone else_ , Hanno wants to tell her, but his body battered by a near-death encounter keeps him quiet. He thinks that it is better this way, his mind seems to wander in the dark alleys that he avoids when he is in his senses and says nothing when he sees that Elisabeth is joined by the well-known and unpleasant presence of Claudia Tiedemann.

He does not distinguish anything she says, and feels that he is also burning because of his broken pride, for showing himself to Claudia in that way. The woman seems to be talking to someone else, surely Jonas, and Hanno doesn't even have the strength to look at him so he decides to focus on Elisabeth, who places some compresses on his forehead.

Hanno makes a grimace that he hopes passes for a smile. It seems that it does not have the desired effect because the girl's face falls for a few seconds, her green eyes full of tears that apparently, she will not shed. In an almost maternal gesture, Elisabeth adjusts a lock of his hair and finally she returns the smile. Hers, on the other hand, is the sun and the forest during the fall.

Hanno wants to sink into the fantasy but then Claudia decides to remove the bandage. He feels his whole insides on fire again and if he lets out a groan of pain, no one can blame him. Elisabeth squeezes his hand lightly, sitting up to go help Claudia in whatever they are doing to his body. He thinks that the pain cannot be worse until Elisabeth, with her stoic hands, conscientiously cleanses the wound. She doesn't look at him for a minute even though Hanno knows the sounds coming out of his mouth aren’t precisely quiet. Hanno purses his lips together and closes his eyes tightly thinking that, once again, Elisabeth reaches where no one else has reached before.

His dark allegory is something that would have made him laugh on another occasion, but in that instant, when Elisabeth puts alcohol on the wound, all Hanno does is pass out.

This time he does not dream. He is immersed in infinite darkness and thinks, in a sick way, that he has already been in that place. Déjà vu. He feels that one by one the atoms that create his body are replaced by the same darkness that is as old as time itself. Hanno floats in the vastness of the universe, understanding that there is something almost poetic in the way his essence returns to the origin of all matter.

He could be there forever, suspended between dimensions, worlds, universes, being part of stardust, collapsing only to start all over again. He is about to disappear when something pierces his center, where he thinks his soul may be. He sees a girl running through the woods. She has a smile on her lips and her blonde hair flutters in the wind. Her lithe body reminds him of a little fox and Hanno marvels at the ease with which the girl seems to blend in with her surroundings. A lovely painting that he doesn’t dare to disturb until the girl turns, looking over her shoulder straight into Hanno's shocked eyes.

He knows that little girl.

Elisabeth observes him and Hanno does not understand, because it seems that this scene was a missing piece from many years ago, when his existence and hers were not aware of the opposite. He does not breathe, motionless, speechless at the magnitude of an event that has never occurred in their world. Elisabeth opens her lips, quietly murmuring something that is lost forever and Hanno falls back into that darkness that now becomes undesirable.

How could he even wish for that darkness, when Elisabeth is out there, in the light?

Elisabeth, alive, warm, a light that illuminates Hanno's life. Elisabeth is his present and his future and his past. The beginning of his own cycle and the middle of his knot. Then, he screams, fights against the bonds of that heavy expansion of the universe, just for her. To return to her.

His atoms regroup. His body becomes tangible again. Everything lights up and there is something in a tunnel that looks like the one he and his father dug years ago. Something that looks like Paradise: a woman, a man, a newborn baby.

Hanno returns to consciousness with a pounding heart and a cry stuck in his dry throat. He sits up, not caring about the wound, not caring about anything other than shaking off the feeling of infinity and finitude. A duality that was shown before his dying eyes and that settles like a powerful weight on his shoulders.

Jonas is by his side the next second, one hand on Hanno's back and the other on his chest. There is bewilderment in his gaze but Hanno doesn't speak, barely breathing. He blinks fast, trying to understand where he is, what happened to him and what his true reality is. Jonas seems doubtful but, in the end, he looks at him and asks, concerned.

“How do you feel?” Hanno doesn't know how he feels until his brain finally comes to full consciousness and the pain returns, though not as sharp as the last time he was awake.

"Fine, I think," he answers, his voice raspy from disuse. There is no one in the bunker except for them, and that anxiety Hanno experiences when he doesn't see Elisabeth kicks in. “And Elisabeth?”

"She went to the cave for food…" Jonas says and there is a pause before he continues, a little more reserved. “You've been like this for days and Elisabeth didn't want to leave you alone, not even a second, so it took me a long time to convince her that she had to go out and clear up her mind a bit.”

"Why did you let her go alone?" It is the only thing Hanno can say and Jonas relaxes his frown and smiles, shaking his head.

"You were on the brink of death and the only thing you're interested in is Beth." He laughs a little and Hanno purses his lips in annoyance. “She insisted that someone had to stay with you and as Claudia disappeared again the only one left was me.”

"You shouldn't have left her go alone, after what happened it's not safe." Jonas, always perceptive, gives him a cup of water that Hanno gulps down eagerly.

“Noah… You were like this for _days_ , believe me, everything that happened has already subsided. I made sure that things were calm… contrary to what you think, I also worry about Beth.”

Hanno wants to tell Jonas that he does not understand, that there is something animal and primitive in the feeling he has for Elisabeth and what Jonas may or may not feel is nothing compared to Hanno’s. He bites his tongue and starts to get up to go in search of Elisabeth when the pain in his abdomen reminds him that no matter how much he wants to leave, his body is not going anywhere.

Jonas shakes his head disapprovingly and refills the cup with more water, and Hanno takes it with a resigned air. He doesn't remember the last time he felt so vulnerable and unable to even get out of bed. He was always used to being the one who executed things, the history of his life marked in his hands. Working in the tavern, in the fields, taking care of Agnes, digging the tunnel, protecting and providing for Elisabeth, keeping Jonas alive and keeping an eye on Claudia. Hanno does not remember a time when he did not have to do something, either by an imposition of himself or by an assignment from Adam.

In front of his new outlook, Hanno sighs quietly, swallowing the sharp pain and asks in a grunt, "What happened while I was unconscious?"

"It was a disaster, Noah," Jonas says, sitting across from him. Hanno sees his dark circles and haggard face and the word "friend" echoes in his mind over and over. “I don't know how much you remember but you barely made it to the bunker alive, I tried to stop the bleeding but I couldn't do much by myself. Elisabeth and Claudia arrived moments later; Claudia later told me that she was coming to the bunker to check that everything was okay because the town was a hail of bullets. They both treated you, the bullet went through your belly but Claudia said that luckily it was muscle instead of an organ. You got a fever for two days and Elisabeth feared infection, but you're a tough bastard and even though you weren't waking up, we knew you'd come out of it.”

"Why was the revolt?" Hanno asks, trying to swallow the lump in his throat, the image of Elisabeth holding his hand almost imprinted on his retina.

"No idea," Jonas shrugs, "which makes me think we should be more aware of how things are in town... Next time it could be worse, and although we know we can't die yet, I really don't think it is necessary that they shoot us at every moment.”

"I'm surprised by your words, suicidal boy," Hanno says and Jonas laughs.

"I see you've got your black humor back," he replies, and Hanno knows Jonas will say something he doesn't want to hear from the way the man tilts his head. “You should thank Claudia.”

Hanno curses himself but knows it's true. The distrust towards Claudia is big, despite having spent years working side by side to stabilize the particle, so it is not easy to accept that he owes something to the woman. He doesn't understand why, but his brain can't make the connection between Claudia and his grandmother, or Claudia and his father. For Hanno, Claudia Tiedemann is someone who knows a lot, says little and explains even less. He knows that he respects the woman, but also knows that he only expects something to prove what he has long suspected: she is hiding something.

Unfortunately for him, Elisabeth admires her and Hanno suspects that while Claudia loathes him, the sentiment does not extend to Elisabeth. He is not surprised because he knows that no one could resist the girl, who has plenty of charisma, despite all the bad experiences she has gone through.

At that moment the bunker door opens and Elisabeth enters, removing the hood of her raincoat. Hanno feels his breath catch in his throat, his muscles contract, shaken by the feeling that sweeps through his defenses and leaves him totally naked under the green gaze of Elisabeth, who barely looks at him before approaching to wrap him in a hug that seems bittersweet.

Hanno clings to her, burying his nose in blonde hair that smells of something he finally identifies. Home. Elisabeth cries on his shoulder and Hanno wants to dry her tears, tell her that he is not worth it, that she is not someone made for pain but he cannot say anything because he feels overwhelmed by her presence. Her scent, her warmth, his Elisabeth.

He doesn't know in what moment Jonas left the bunker but when he opens his eyes again it's just him and her, still embracing. The girl separates, searching the wound with her hands while Hanno watches her, marveling at the details, the curve of her cheekbones, the long thick eyelashes, the damp hair, the dark circles and the paleness of her skin, the almost imperceptible transition between childhood and adolescence.

“ _How do you feel?_ ” Elisabeth asks, her hands shaking slightly.

Hanno feels that he may break, but answers anyway, outlining a sincere smile: _"Better, and all because of you."_

" _And Claudia_ ," Elisabeth responds quickly, beginning to undo the bandage with an ease that makes Hanno wonder how many times she has done it in the course of his convalescence.

"Yeah, and her too… I'll thank her when I see her," he watches Elisabeth discover the latest bandage and Hanno is surprised at the size of the wound.

The skin is a deep pink, the thread with which the wound was stitched is still visible, piercing the skin in what it seems like a desperate attempt to save his life. Hanno has never been vain but admits that under Elisabeth's gaze, he feels that the wound looks ten times worse than it actually is. He has the rare urge to cover up and, as always when he has some embarrassing thought, a mocking laugh that sounds a lot like Agnes', echoes through the confines of his mind.

_Ridiculous._

Elisabeth takes a closer look at the wound and then sits up, looking for what Hanno assumes is alcohol and scraps of cloths that will serve as bandages: _"It looks much better, but I don't think you should get up yet."_

" _I'd rather recover in the caves_ ," he says and Elisabeth rolls her eyes.

" _With the humidity the only thing you're going to have is an infection._ " Soon the bunker fills with the smell of alcohol and antiseptic. Hanno watches as Elisabeth approaches him with a concentrated face and for a while he thinks that she could have been a magnificent doctor.

It's a bitter thing, thinking about what was taken from her but soon he stops imagining the “what if”. Elisabeth gets down to work and even though it doesn't burn as much as he remembered it, it's painful anyway. Her hands are steady and yet there is elegance and delicacy in her movements, her touch is confident on Hanno's skin and everything becomes intimate in a strange way. Elisabeth sighs in the process and her warm breath crashes against the sensitive skin of the wound, Hanno's head spins and he forces himself to think that it is the smell of alcohol and nothing but that.

He wonders if he is doing the right thing, if that moment is also traced as an appendix in Adam's plan. If they can be like that, sharing a few precious moments of tranquility in that bunker that has seen blood, pain, rage, frustration. He wonders what it is that weight on his chest that gets bigger as he spends more time with Elisabeth. He wonders why she and why he and why they both rotate against each other, combined, united, gravitating calmly amid the chaos around them.

He wonders why Noah had that look and when Elisabeth puts the last bandage on, Hanno realizes that once again the answers to his questions have slipped from his grasp. They flap their wings like elusive butterflies, always within reach, always avoiding him at the last second.

**2026.**

Hanno feels the crunch of the leaves under his boots and, below, the throb of the earth that little by little rebuilds itself. He barely makes himself present, his body moving in unison with the wild nature of the forest. He has years of experience behind him and it is something he prides himself on, knowing that he gets better with each successful hunt. Hanno exhales slowly and sees the mist of his breath disappear into the brown bushes.

He knows Elisabeth is few meters behind him, also watching the wild boar that will serve as food and as an element for trade. He can feel her presence clearly, as if he were just steps away from her. Hanno thinks that he can feel the cold touch of her hands on the gun, the warm air that escapes between her lips, the sweat that runs down her back.

Hanno suppresses a sigh.

He never thought he'd find himself in that situation, completely overshadowed by the mere presence of Elisabeth behind him. It's ridiculous and out of whatever Adam and Sic Mundus teached him. Noah told him what the purpose was but he didn't tell him about the path and Hanno finds himself lost in a maze without any guidance. No red thread to show him the way out.

The boar makes an appearance and Hanno loses a few invaluable seconds that Elisabeth takes advantage of, to shoot right in the head of the beast. The sound of the animal's death spreads through the dry leaves and then a deathly silence settles through the forest. Hanno doesn't want to turn around, embarrassed by his mistake but decides that not doing it is worse so, he faces Elisabeth, who smiles at him excitedly.

" _I beat you_ ," she signs, and some of Hanno's burden lightens.

" _Maybe I let you win_ ," he answers and Elisabeth wrinkles her nose.

_"Maybe the student has already outgrown the teacher,"_ she replies, giving him a toothy smile that makes Hanno's legs feel weak. _“Did you know that wild boar hair was used to make toothbrushes?”_

Hanno laughs, any strange thoughts fading from his mind thanks to Elisabeth's usual mania for spouting out curious facts at random times. They approach where the animal lies dead and Hanno hands her the gun and backpack, preparing to carry the beast on his shoulders.

“ _It's heavy?_ ” Elisabeth asks when they both go back to the caves.

Hanno shakes his head, denying it, and that is a complete lie but he prefers that to Elisabeth thinking him weak. The girl gives him an incredulous look but says nothing more. The sound of a thunderstorm begins shortly after, and she looks up as lightning strikes the sky, followed by another thunder.

" _Do you think it will rain or it’s just an electric storm?_ " Elisabeth says as she jumps a branch, shaking her blonde hair, tousled with frizz.

" _It's definitely going to rain_ ," Hanno answers, a little bit clumsy for balancing the body of the animal on his back.

It doesn't take long for them to enter the cave and as soon as they reach their camp, Hanno drops his load with a huff and the impact of the body creates a dull sound that is followed by another thunder and finally, rain. Elisabeth takes the buckets and Hanno nods while taking a jug of water that they have for washing things. He rushes to flay the animal, the edge of the knife cutting through the thick fur. When Elisabeth re-enters she goes to the corner where her sleeping bag and belongings are and Hanno knows she is going to change her clothes.

He gulps, focusing entirely on cutting the boar in an efficient way. He has never violated Elisabeth's privacy and does not expect to start in that moment. Even so, his imagination does not require his permission and for a moment he thinks he can see the way Elisabeth crosses her arms to remove the old shirt, revealing the soft white skin, ruffling her thick hair.

He swallows again and shakes his head a little, taming his emotions and thoughts again. The only thing left as a witness to what he just imagined is his racing heart. He listens the sound of clothes falling and then, the rustle as Elisabeth puts on what Hanno imagines is one of Franziska's sweaters. A couple of minutes have passed when she stands next to him, with a smile and for a few terrible, paranoid moments, Hanno thinks that she can read in his face what he just visualized in his mind.

She gets down to work and Hanno finally breathes, safe from her inquisitive gaze and her ability to read his thoughts. Their hands brush, the animal's blood dripping from their fingers, and Hanno wonders if the same things happens to her. If she feels the same tingling that runs down his spine and, much to his regret, that sensation of heat in his lower belly. Hanno knows what that feeling is and since the first time it took him by surprise, he has not stopped cursing himself.

Elisabeth is too pure and sacred for him to be carried away by those fantasies he tries so hard to eradicate.

It is something that eludes him, his desires fight to survive the sentimental apocalypse he is going through. When Hanno thinks that he won, that everything will go back to the way it used to be in his mind, heart and body, there is something: a smile or a slight hint of bare skin that makes him go back to the beginning. It's ridiculous, but apparently, he has to find a better way to deal with it before Elisabeth realizes his feelings. The last thing Hanno wants is for her to consider him just out of pity or because of the fact that she doesn't know anyone other than him or Jonas. When Hanno, on the darkest nights and with his feelings exposed, decides to torture himself with what will never be, he always imagines that Elisabeth accepts his proposal because she too is prey of the same silent and intense love and desire, that eats him from inside out and that leaves him defenseless, without air, becoming nothing more than a desperate man.

He suppresses a sigh and focuses, satisfied with the silence that sets in, with only the wet sound of what they do interrupting the quiet environment. Between the two of them, they finish soon, already used to that type of work. Elisabeth comes forward to wash her hands and utensils and Hanno sets up and separates what they will eat, what they will exchange, and what will be used for various purposes. Then he washes his hands and knife and Elisabeth gives him a gentle push.

" _There's still time to drop it off at the flea market_ ," she says, showing him the pocket watch she always carries with her.

" _Yes, I thought that too, we don't have any salt to preserve the meat so it's better now that it's fresh_ ," Hanno answers and Elisabeth nods.

They pack the meat and put on the raincoats and come out with their backpacks loaded with meat and tomatoes from the small garden that Elisabeth and Jonas keep near the bunker. It is still raining and Hanno thinks it is better to leave the buckets to collect the water, Elisabeth agrees and they place them in a strategic place so that no one else can find them. Then they head off, shortening the journey along trails that only they, Jonas and Claudia know. Not many people venture into the woods anyway, and it is a factor that the four of them take full advantage of.

They arrive at the flea market just before sunset and Elisabeth leads the way, by now more used to dealing with those in charge than Hanno. Her charm makes her the best at bartering, contrary to him, whom still most people continue looking at with apprehension. Elisabeth often tells him it's because of his face and in general, because of the bully aura that surrounds him and Hanno couldn't think of that as a bad thing so he takes it on with pride. He likes to think that people see him as dangerous.

They walk directly to the stall where they exchange the meat for a box of bullets for Hanno's gun. It is a pity that only in those circumstances human beings value food and water more than weapons, but Hanno does not stop to think about existentialist things like that. A dark part of him always knew that the human being deserved pain and penance, divine punishment. He keeps thinking about it but that doesn't extend to Elisabeth, who he sees as someone who has already suffered too much without deserving it.

Then they both head further to the back of the market, to a stall that is staffed by a grandmother and her granddaughter. The woman has a scar that reminds him of his own mother and the girl always looks a little bit sick but they are both kind to Elisabeth and that is enough for Hanno to try not to kill them with his gaze. He watches how Elisabeth greets the older woman with a quick hug and the sick girl gives him a shy smile before glancing at him with an expression Hanno doesn't bother to discern. Elisabeth takes out her notebook and Hanno takes out the tomatoes, red and firm, like little miracles that have been achieved thanks to Jonas's patience and Elisabeth's perseverance. Hanno offers them to the granddaughter, who blushes for a moment and almost drops the tomatoes, her movements are awkward and Hanno has to juggle to prevent the fruit from falling.

The girl apologizes countless times despite Hanno telling her it isn't necessary. There is a moment when his gaze and Elisabeth's meet and in her green eyes there is something that Hanno sees when they fight. Something almost wild that always takes him by surprise, making him think of that Elisabeth who hides under the smiles, jokes and sweetness. A teenager who begins to become a woman; that blinks slowly, wetting her lips, a flame that Hanno tries to keep at a distance, always afraid of being burned instantly.

Elisabeth blinks and there is no longer a trace of that feeling, she smirks and starts writing something that shows to the old woman. The woman laughs, shaking her head and taking two tomatoes from her granddaughter's hands, squeezing them lightly and then bringing them to her nose, inhaling the fresh and sweet aroma of the fruit. Hanno opens the backpack when the woman offers them some apples and a bag of salt. This time Elisabeth receives the things from the other girl's hands, who keeps glancing at him furtively, making Hanno a bit uncomfortable. They say goodbye, Elisabeth promising the old woman that she will go again to exchange a medicinal remedy that Hanno saw her do the past few days.

They leave the camp, Elisabeth's little social moment taking longer than they expected. The rain continues, persistent but not completely seeping into their thick raincoats and Elisabeth shows him the watch, confirming that it is already late in the afternoon. They walk until they take one of the many familiar paths that will lead them to the caves, and Hanno thinks it will be a smooth walk until Elisabeth tugs on his sleeve. Hanno watches her, curious and Elisabeth looks back at him, again with that challenging glow that deep down makes him a little bit stupid.

" _You know that woman likes you, right?_ " She signs, the movements quick and eager, possibly projecting an insecurity that Hanno would never have seen coming.

_“Woman?”_ He asks, because all of that is sudden and Hanno's brain doesn't have time to process the question that looks more like an accusation _._ _“What woman?”_

Elisabeth rolls her eyes, pursing her mouth, and Hanno's throat dries up, completely enraptured by the movement: _"Adalia, the granddaughter of the old woman who just exchanged the tomatoes for us."_

Hanno knows Elisabeth well enough to know that this subject, for some reason he cannot guess, is going to wear out his patience faster than usual. But he also knows that he has no idea what the girl is talking about and has no time to pretend otherwise.

" _I don't know what you're talking about, Beth, I didn't even know the girl's name_." He moves his hands slowly, trying to make Elisabeth understand that he doesn't find the importance in that subject. It seems that he said the wrong thing because Elisabeth's gesture becomes furious and for a moment Hanno thinks that she will leave him in the middle of the forest.

" _She's not a girl, Adalia has my age_ ," she responds, agitated, and Hanno is just as lost as he was at the beginning of the conversation.

" _The point is, I haven't notice her enough to know if she likes me or not_ ," he replies, also feeling that his patience runs out. He had never liked fighting Elisabeth, much less when a third party was involved.

Of course, usually the third part is Jonas and to a greater extent, Claudia, but never someone so out of Hanno's context as the old woman's granddaughter. She doesn't understand Elisabeth's anger but he knows that he can't just push it aside like he would do with any tantrum. He is ashamed of himself when he realizes that he wants that fight to have been derived from jealousy, but that is impossible.

Why would Elisabeth be jealous of him?

" _You can't seriously be that blind_ ," she answers, and for a few seconds Hanno takes offense at the way Elisabeth projects her momentary exasperation for him.

He is about to reply when something catches his attention. A wet sound and he's about to turn around when he feels a sharp blow on the back of his neck. His body doesn’t respond for a few moments, long enough for him to hit the ground with a loud sound. Birds flutter, frightened by the sudden violence, and Hanno tries to get up quickly after hearing the choking sound coming from Elisabeth's direction.

His vision is clouded but he glimpses enough. The man holds Elisabeth by the lapel of her coat with one hand and with the other he pulls her hair with force, surely thinking that Hanno was dead after that attack. There is something warm that slides from his nape to the neck, but Hanno feels an unusual force inside of him and soon throws himself towards the stranger, who pushes Elisabeth with violence. Hanno takes him by the shoulders and turns him, hearing the man's cry of surprise. Hanno sees how Elisabeth is paralyzed on the ground, her green eyes go wide and he sees red. Suddenly he is the prey to all the hatred and anger that he has been accumulating throughout all those years.

He feels like he can destroy everything, blood is like fire in his veins, there is a need to end whatever it is that has hurt Elisabeth. As he smashes his fist hard into the man's face, Hanno is possessed by that darkness that has always been inside him, showing itself at his worst moments but that he never allowed Elisabeth to even glimpse. The man hits him on the sides and the adrenaline mutes the pain he should feel, he does not know how many times he has hit the face of the stranger but he does understand that it is not enough. Soon, the man is no longer a stranger, his face is decomposed, a jumble of blood and skin separated from the skull that Hanno faintly recognizes as the remains of the man who attacked Elisabeth so many years ago.

That only serves to inflame his anger, the gaunt man reaches for his neck, intending to choke him but Hanno is faster, escapes from the grip and does not hear the babbling or dying wails. He lets himself be carried away a thousand times by that hell that boils and runs through his entire body and sees nothing but blood. He sees nothing but the possibility of avenging Elisabeth for that unnecessary evil that culminated in the death of her trust in the world around her, the death of Peter Doppler, and the death of her innocence.

Soon he feels someone grab him by the wrist, stopping another blow that would have landed on the man's cheekbone. He instantly recognizes the touch, Elisabeth's slender fingers contrasting with his stained skin and the blood that has dropped out from his knuckles.

Hanno snaps back to reality, blinking, staring at a man who is not the same man who took so much from Elisabeth. This man lies with just a thin thread of life hanging from his ragged breaths. The gurgling of blood is heard above the rain and Hanno looks at his hands, dripping thick red drops and with small cuts where his fists hit the teeth of his attacker.

Hanno’s breathing is erratic and he doesn't want to look at anything other than his hands. He is seized by a sudden panic at the thought that he has to turn and face Elisabeth's terrified gaze. How did he allow himself to be seen by her? She never had to see that cursed and primal part of Hanno, forever free from witness that rage that remains latent in his body and soul. Adam used to say that by purging the emotions, humans could find total freedom but Hanno understood that he could never have that.

Everything he felt, he did completely; love, sadness... rage. They consumed him as fire consumes dry leaves, and the only thing Hanno could do was to indulge in the pragmatism and solitude that comes with a simple and strict life. He could not give in to his desires or urges and in that moment, when the man gives his last sound of life, Hanno realizes that no matter how much he wishes otherwise; his heart will do what his heart wants.

He feels his eyes burn with tears of bewilderment and anger and he still does not look at Elisabeth because he knows that he does not deserve to be in her presence. How can he deserve her if he is sin incarnate and she is the exact opposite? The fingers around his wrist are warm and when Elisabeth slides them across Hanno's palm, her skin is stained with spilled blood. She intertwines their hands and Hanno feels Elisabeth pull him towards her.

He stands up and turns, refusing to look at her out of justified fear. He wants to avoid the agony he will feel when he sees revulsion in Elisabeth's eyes. She lets him go and Hanno thinks that he is going to cry at any moment, he wants to take her hands again, ask her never to let go because she is his axis and his anchor. But then again and as always, Elisabeth surprises him, her fingers wet with blood and rain, caress his cheeks and Hanno cries, this time gathering enough courage to look her in the eye. His tears mix with the cold drops of water, sliding down his face and falling to the wet soil.

Elisabeth looks back at him with a compassion that burns his entire being. She is also crying and the universe gives them a deserving pause after the violence. The rain rages on, thick drops washing the crime scene, the man's blood mixing with the acidic water, and Hanno lets Elisabeth guide him to the caves.

It's like a dream.

Hanno sees everything in a kind of out-of-body experience. _I've already been here_ , he thinks, when Elisabeth helps him remove his raincoat. She approaches with a bucket of filtered water and cleans the blood and mud from his cheeks, runs her fingers through his hair, and the she focuses in healing his hands. A deep cut made by the man's teeth and smaller ones, sprinkled on his skin. Hanno looks at Elisabeth, her strength; how she stares at his eyes and moves her hands, slowly.

" _Hanno, are you okay?_ " She asks, concern and anxiety painted clearly on her face.

He told her his real name after the first few months of living together. It is a secret that only comes to light when they are alone and that gave Elisabeth the assurance that he would always be honest with her. For her he is not Noah when they are surrounded by nothing but the cave walls… he is Hanno. Therefore, when she signs his real name, he breaks, feeling like she invokes him to the rhythm of her hands.

" _Forgive me, Elisabeth_ ," he answers and she blinks, denying slowly.

_"You saved me… again,"_ she explains, accentuating the last word with another caress on his cheek. _What would I have to forgive you for?_

_"You should never have seen me like this,"_ Hanno says and takes her hands, squeezing them lightly before continuing. He knows he has to say it, understands that he must expose the true nature of his being once and for all. _"I am a murderer."_

_"You defended me,"_ Elisabeth answers, with a ferocity that Hanno loves in that moment more than ever. _"In this world there is no room for anything but survival and you made sure that both of us, and especially me, were still alive. You've made sure of that since my father died and I have no way of repay you. No matter what you are or have been, for me you will always be Hanno... If you think I'm going to see you differently, you're very wrong. You just did what you had to do.”_

Hanno looks at her through tear-wet lashes. He considers what Elisabeth just told him, how she hasn't let go of his hands, caressing his knuckles, as if she wanted to heal them with her touch. He knows he is at the mercy of the love he has for her and also knows that it doesn’t matter what he may or may not feel. His life will continue to be dictated by her voice and her will. He is not even sure whether he continues with his steely loyalty to Sic Mundus and Adam, not when the only person in his mind is Elisabeth. With her gentle hands, molding him to her whim without even knowing it. Blessedly unaware that she could destroy Hanno with one word or free him from any divine punishment with another.

Outside, the rain does not rest, the soil yielding to the violence of the acid drops. In the semi-dark cave, Elisabeth rests her forehead on Hanno's, and he closes his eyes, feeling the connection that strove to survive through adversity. They sigh at the same time and the two become one for a few moments of peace after the misfortune. The seconds pass and as another way of freeing himself from the weight that he always carries on his back, Hanno tells her the story of his life, the great details that he has not had the courage to confess.

His mother’s death, victim of a violent childbirth. His father’s death, at the hands of his own son. The grudge against Agnes, unjustified but inevitable. How every important aspect of his life had been shaped by violence, giving birth to his cursed existence. Hanno doesn't need to explain to her that for that reason he clings to the Sic Mundus ideology, she already knows, understands it but Hanno keeps confessing until the rain stops falling. Until Elisabeth hugs him for a long time, until she promises him again that nothing could change her perception of him. Until she offers him the atonement and Hanno takes it because he's not a martyr, he's just a man. Desperate to put a stop to the ghosts of his past. Desperate to fully share with Elisabeth whatever awaits them in the years to come.

His lips tremble, hungry for a kiss. It would be easy to lean in and finally do what he has been wanting to do for a couple of months. He feels naked in front of her, not only in body but in soul and he sighs, a tremor running through his body. The small woodfire is suddenly extinguished by a gust of air and Hanno interprets it as a signal, his body does not respond to him and decides that it has been enough for a day. He feels Elisabeth sigh at his side as well, and they both stand next to each other, in the dark, engulfed by confessions.

They will never know the purpose of the man who lies dead in the forest. They will not take that trail again and that body will become food for animals and, in time, compost to recover the infertile land. Hanno and Elisabeth will never know that that man was another knot in the red thread that holds them together, achieving that everything is accomplished as it should be.

One more link in an endless chain.

**2027.**

In retrospective, Hanno thinks it was all Claudia's fault.

It is a totally false statement but his prejudice clouds his rational thinking, especially when it comes to her. Years later, when he recounts his point of view on the story to Elisabeth, it always begins with the incident in one of Claudia's many experiments, which resulted in free time that he and Jonas took advantage of to explore beyond of what they had explored before. Jonas had said they were close to where the Obendorfs lived, and the last name resonated in Hanno's mind but he never found the reason why it seemed familiar.

They had been gathering materials to build Elisabeth a more comfortable place to live. A bit near to Jonas's bunker and the little orchard he had with Elisabeth. They had wood, but there was more to go before they could even begin to build properly. It was a project that took up the free time that he used to check on the passage. And Jonas had agreed almost immediately, complaining about how inconvenient it was to visit them in the cave, but Hanno knew it was something he was also doing for Elisabeth's well-being.

After the short circuit that completely burned away the copper that Claudia and they had gathered for months, Jonas explained that they could find something of use in what used to be Jürgen Obendorf's land. So they're both there, searching through rubble that was already there before the apocalypse and rubble that came after the explosion. It is not an easy task but they have nothing better to do in those five free hours that seem like a luxury in those times.

"Noah, look at this," Jonas says, half an hour after they start. He has a smile on his lips and waves a dark bottle in triumph.

Hanno walks over, taking the bottle and reading the label. It is a red wine and Hanno is surprised that the bottle survived the explosion. He thinks he can take it to Elisabeth, to spice up the food but Jonas takes the bottle from him, pursing his lips.

"Don't you dare," he says determinedly and Hanno rolls his eyes.

“Why not?” He asks, sincerely confused and somewhat irritated. “Better to occupy it in something useful.”

"Because I want to get drunk," Jonas says, serious, and Hanno can't stop the laugh that flows from his chest.

"Why the hell do you want to get drunk, Kahnwald?" He laughs and Jonas nudges him slightly.

"Well, it never interested me when I was younger and teenagers are supposed to do that kind of things," he explains, and Hanno rolls his eyes again. “I am almost 25 years old and I have never gotten drunk, I want to know what it feels like.”

"Don't think I'll babysit you," he answers and Jonas snorts.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but I thought we could drink the bottle together or at least some of it." Hanno looks at him in disbelief and Jonas shakes his head in amusement. “It's what friends do, they sneak out from their wives to drink.”

Hanno suddenly reddens from his ears to the tip of his nose and Jonas laughs, pleased to bring him back to the emotional debate Hanno has had with himself since he realized that Elisabeth meant more to him than his friend or protégé. To his misfortune, Jonas realized this even before himself and entertains himself torturing Hanno with phrases like that.

"Elisabeth is not my wife," he says and Jonas pats him on the back.

“It's as if she were.”

Hanno pushes him in annoyance, but by now Jonas is already immune to his bad temper so in hindsight the second culprit is Jonas. Hanno never found out what led him to accept but two hours later he was lying in a corner of the bunker, taking another drink from the wine bottle, with Jonas talking about how there was an occasion in which, Magnus, Bartosz and himself ran away from school to go to a tattoo parlor.

"Obviously the only one who seriously ended up getting a tattoo was him," Jonas smiles and continues, amused. “For a change, Martha was more annoyed at me for not stopping him than at her brother for doing it.”

"What was the tattoo like?" Hanno feels his words slurred a bit and his vision has started to blur but he takes another long sip of the wine.

"It said 'eat the rich,' he tattooed it on his back," Jonas shrugs, taking the bottle from Hanno’s hands. “I think it looked good.”

Hanno remembers that tattoo. He saw it very often, when the man who was almost like his father took off his shirt while chopping wood. Magnus taught him how to chop wood, how to cook, and how to hunt. Bartosz moving away more and more from the father’s role that at some point in his life he had performed. He also remembers Franziska, with her knack for anything manual and her eye for mechanics that none of the other adults possessed. Hanno knows why he doesn't tell Jonas any of this, keeping him ignorant of almost everything related to his former friends. He knows that if he talks about Magnus he has to talk about Franziska and if he talks about them, he has to talk about Bartosz.

Jonas had already explained how sorry he was for not have been a good friend to his father and although Hanno had told him that Bartosz had died, he never confessed the circumstances. His only confidant was Elisabeth, who took with a melancholy maturity everything she learned about her sister and her former acquaintances. He still remembers the face she made the first time they spoke of Franziska, the way her eyes seemed to want to record every movement of his hands when he told her that her sister was alive, happily accompanied by a man who loved and respected her above all things and that the only regret in her life was that she had not escaped the apocalypse with her family.

Also, how she used to mention her little sister, Elisabeth, a beautiful girl who she described as a skilled liar and a thief of small and shiny objects. _Like a little fox_ , she used to say with a sad smile on her face and Hanno always wanted to ask more, but the woman was at the same time an open book or a safe box of secrets. When she closed herself in, only Magnus managed to reach her and Hanno always looked at them as an ideal of love, after his own father and mother.

He did not consider himself a romantic man, but he did see with curiosity those two sides of the same feeling that Adam seemed to despise and the rest treasured. Now, years later, he understands how love can be the support of a life, as it was with Franziska and Magnus; and also, regrettably, he understands why it was the downfall in the case of his father and mother. Understands that in a life like the one they all lived, love was the only safe escape they had and he knew it was a dangerous vice, to put all your happiness on one person.

_People die_ , Hanno thinks, fear creeping up his back as his mind recreates Elisabeth's face, laughing because she harvested a perfect tomato.

"Like a little fox," Hanno murmurs, mournful and more drunk than lucid, and Jonas looks at him intrigued.

“What are you talking about?” Jonas asks, his head bobbing back and forth, dirty hair flicking from side to side.

"Beth, obviously," Hanno answers, smiling.

He does not know what time it is and that is terribly careless of him but for some reason, he feels that his mind is in the clouds and each one of them has a single name written: Elisabeth, Eli, Beth, Lis, little fox.

He doesn't realize he's saying it out loud until Jonas cuts him off, a pleased smile on his face: "You really are in love with her."

Hanno blushes again but can't find the encouragement to be upset. Everything is surreal and he has to blink several times when he sees Elisabeth enter the bunker. She looks so beautiful that Hanno is sure it is his imagination. He laughs a bit, standing up awkwardly when the imaginary Elisabeth crosses her arms, frowning.

_"Beth, Beth,"_ he says, moving his hands slowly. _“My Beth.”_

He stumbles closer and is prepared for that apparition to vanish once his hands touch it that his heart almost freezes when the opposite happens. He almost goes flat on his face, crashing into Elisabeth's warm body. And is instantly surprised by the scent of her hair, a combination of fresh cut grass and wet soil. It's addictive and Hanno takes a deep breath, lost for a few seconds in Elisabeth's charm until she pulls away, taking him by the shoulders and staring directly at his eyes, then looks to the corner where Jonas is dozing off and asks the most obvious question.

“ _Are you drunk?_ ” She says with a smile, and Hanno's first impulse is to deny it.

It is useless because Elisabeth looks at him incredulously and guides him to one of the benches. She then goes to Jonas and wakes him up, taking her a considerable effort. Hanno watches with envy and jealousy as Elisabeth helps Jonas to lie down correctly, as she makes sure that the man won’t choke on his vomit, and then puts some covers on him, arranging them carefully.

Jonas opens his eyes slightly and smiles at Elisabeth, muttering a thank you that sounds like the most obnoxious thing Hanno's ever heard him say. He forgets all the good brotherly thoughts and he can imagine a thousand scenarios where Jonas is tortured for his audacity to even look at Elisabeth’s direction. He doesn't realize he let out a giggle until he sees Elisabeth laugh too. She walks over and crouches down to meet his eyes. Hanno's breath is shaky when he looks at her blonde lashes, the curvature of her pink lips, her slightly crooked teeth.

When Elisabeth asks if he can stand, moving her hands slowly to make sure he understands, Hanno feels that everything turns into foam. Suddenly it is very easy to raise his hand and lightly brush his rough knuckles against Elisabeth's cheek, next to one of her dimples. Her skin is smooth and the sensation of electricity that runs through his body is overwhelming. He wants to lean in, kiss her, take her by the waist and tell her that nothing else matters but her. That there is no Sic Mundus or Adam, there is no Paradise or Hell. Only her over and over again, her.

"You're beautiful, Beth," Hanno says aloud, one of his hands holding her slender wrist, feeling her blood pound and the other still on her cheek.

Elisabeth shows no signs of understanding what he just said and Hanno, in a sudden and terrible attack of lucidity, stands up quickly. He almost stumbles his way out of the bunker and the only thought on his mind is that he should get away from her as quickly as possible. Of course, his life has never turned out as expected and that is no exception.

The air hits him full in the face and everything spins. He feels the retching and luckily manage to reach a bush, vomiting seconds later. Hanno thinks how stupid it was to be carried away by the temptation of a “friendly afternoon” with Jonas. He's halfway through emptying his entire stomach when Elisabeth places a comforting hand on his back. His brain begins to function properly again and to his bad luck, everything he said, thought or did comes back to him, almost as aggressive as the retching he continues to feel. He sits up slowly, wiping the corner of his mouth with the torn sleeve of his sweater. He turns and faces Elisabeth, waiting for some disapproving look. Instead, she looks at him amusedly and Hanno's stomach clenches again but from something very different than from the effects of alcohol.

“ _Better?_ ” She says and Hanno thinks it would be easy to tell her that nothing is better since he found out he was in love with her.

" _A little_ ," he replies, biting the inside of his cheek.

He knows that he couldn’t do something to convey his true feelings because he still has the uncertainty that assaulted him a couple of years ago. That bad feeling every time he thought about Elisabeth's future. He remembers himself, as an adult haunted by ghosts at night. Speaking in dreams, addressing someone he loved and regretting something or someone he had lost. Hanno remembers his eyes, overshadowed by pain and anger, his not-quite finished sentences. An eternal puzzle of which the most important pieces were always missing.

He remembers the man who was no longer Hanno Tauber, but Noah, the maker of the ark that would save them all. Where was Elisabeth, then? What part of the phrase _‘would save them all’_ , she occupied?

Elisabeth smiles at him and Hanno's mind goes back to a blank canvas. They walk back to the caves, slowly and stopping from time to time when Hanno thinks he will be attacked again by the retching. They arrive at dusk and he feels a headache that only intensifies when realizes that he wasted hours that could have used to find more material for the house he will build for Elisabeth.

" _You should sleep._ " Elisabeth hands him a glass of water and once Hanno finishes it with big gulps, she places a hand on his chest, leaning him toward his makeshift bed.

Hanno swallows hard, hoping she doesn't feel the pounding of his heart that seems to rush at her sole touch. He lets her lie him down and, on an impulse, grabs her wrist again, lightly, just enough to stop her. Elisabeth looks at her curiously and Hanno apologizes, trying to stay awake, his consciousness beginning to blur.

" _You don't have to apologize,_ " Elisabeth says, and it's the last thing Hanno hears before falling into a nightmare-free sleep.

When he wakes up with a dry throat, he doesn't know how long it has been. The cave is barely lit by the weak flame of the campfire so he assumes that it is almost midnight. Hanno looks quickly at Elisabeth's bedroll and sees her standing there, and for a few seconds he thinks he is still dreaming. The girl has her back to him, taking off the sweater she was wearing and Hanno wants to turn around, close his eyes and pretend that he is still asleep but his cursed desire turns out to be stronger than him. In his semi-conscious state, the fire casts intriguing lights and shadows that detail the way Elisabeth's body moves.

He does not know that in those seconds he will learn another type of intimacy and there is a small voice in his head that tells him that what he is doing is wrong. Elisabeth is not for Hanno and although he is for her, that is a piece of privacy that he should not be stealing. Despite that, he cannot take his eyes off her and feels his body burn when he realizes that under the sweater there are two light shirts that she quickly takes off and, under that, there is nothing else. He can detail the bare skin, how the movements are more accentuated under the rugged light of the fire and Hanno would give anything to put his forehead between Elisabeth's shoulder blades, kissing her spine, feeling how the fine hairs of her skin bristles at the contact of his lips.

His treacherous imagination rejoices, urging him to continue that train of thought for a few more moments. Hanno is not stupid; he always knew that Elisabeth had become a beautiful woman who had no equal in the present time or in the past. As much as Hanno remembers the women he saw coming and going from the tavern, he cannot find someone who would beat Elisabeth in beauty and that is without counting her brilliant mind and thinks that maybe he could look a little more of her body, when his hopes -cursed but inescapable- break when he sees that Elisabeth puts on another sweater that serves as her pajamas.

His belly is on fire and he is aware that those furtive glances have caused him a physical problem. He finds himself in a moral dilemma that he avoided his whole life, always running from his instincts, practicing the simple life and wishing nothing in particular because his obsessed mind could betray him in any moment. He tries to calm down and almost succeeds when suddenly, Elisabeth turns and her green eyes look directly at him. It seems, for an instant, that time stands still and just him and a surprised Elisabeth exist in the whole world. Hanno thinks that he could face the consequences and apologize or lie and tell her that he had just woken up; after all, he's twenty-four years old and in a way, he is more wise and experienced than someone in his eighties, so he does the only logical thing he can do: he turns and hides under the covers until he sees that the light of the campfire burns out.

The shadows engulf him and his body, which was burning a few minutes ago, is cold and he is prey of the horrible feeling of having been discovered on the only occasion that he had decided to follow his instincts. He wants to disappear and realizes that he has never felt so much shame and self-loathing before in his entire life. How did he let that happen? He feels that he has just tainted Elisabeth with his behavior. Hanno feels more human than he ever felt, aware for the first time that he can be consumed in repressed desire.

It only took a few seconds to break his stoicism and now he is under the covers, hidden like a child. Fleeing from green eyes that have become his executioners, imprisoning him in a spiral that has the same beginning and end. Elisabeth, is the name that Hanno murmurs in the dark, the one he screams in his dreams and the one he designs with his hands when they are accompanied. What would Adan think of him? His older self? His father? He even wonders what Agnes would think of him. She used to tell him that he was the coldest man she had ever met.

And he indeed was.

Only one girl with a heart and hopes broken, but with incomparable fierceness was enough to break a shield that he had put on since Silja's death.

Hanno doesn't know when he fell asleep and the only thing he experiences when opens his eyes is that his head feels like it’s about to explode, his mouth tastes bitter, and his body feels like when he used to dig all day. He turns slowly, praying that Elisabeth isn't awake and breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes that the girl is still asleep, curled up in her covers.

Hanno awkwardly gets up, washing up and changing as quickly as possible. He trips three times, gets stuck in his own pants and is almost certain that he put his shirt backwards, but none of that prevents him from rushing out of the cave, rifle in hand. And he is mentally grateful that Claudia is missing because he won’t have to see Jonas's face.

It seems that everything is in his favor when he reaches the piece of land where the little house will be and he begins to feel safe until he sees Jonas approaching. Hanno immediately feels a small flame ignite in him and waits for the man to get close enough to give him one of his best scornful glances that, as always, Jonas easily dismiss.

Hanno misses the days when Jonas really feared him.

"I was hoping for you to choke in your own vomit, Kahnwald," Hanno says, and Jonas has the audacity to laugh.

"I assume you did something very stupid or else you wouldn't be in this mood." Jonas carries more wood under his arm and Hanno softens a little, in spite of himself.

"The only stupid thing I did was getting drunk with you, Jonas," he replies as he grabs a shovel to keep digging the necessary trenches.

"Was Elisabeth mad at you?" Jonas also picks up a shovel and continues, burying it in the soft ground. "I remember that she didn't seem angry but I shouldn't trust my judgment too much."

Hanno rolls his eyes in annoyance and is about to lash out at Jonas when the man reaches over and hands him something he vaguely recognizes as carbonated water. Where did he get it from? Hanno has no idea but he drinks the liquid eagerly and Jonas smiles at him. After that gesture, Hanno knows he can't get mad at him.

They keep digging and Hanno explains what he remembers from the day before, avoiding all the things related to Elisabeth and there comes a point in the story when Jonas buries the shovel, wiping his sweat with a torn shirt and looks him straight in the eye.

"You're not fooling me, Noah," he says seriously. “What happened with Beth?”

Hanno struggles again.

Whenever there is an opportunity to share something with Jonas, his paranoic thoughts come through, the word "betrayal" echoing in his mind. He knows that this man is his best and only friend and they have shared more things than he would have imagined when he first saw him. Hanno remembers the sweat, tears and blood shared throughout those years and much to his regret he decides to trust Jonas again, ignoring the fact that the prediction of their future relationship is not encouraging.

"I screwed everything up, Jonas," Hanno whispers, the shame overshadowing his other feelings.

He talks about what he said and did not say, how he acted and how he got carried away by what he ignored for years, even before reaching the future. Jonas lets him talk without interruption and once he's done he feels like everything seems a thousand times better and worse at the same time. Vocalizing what happened is like making it unavoidable and it also lifts a weight off his shoulders. After a few seconds, Jonas claps him on the shoulder and when Hanno looks into his eyes he doesn't expect to find sadness reflected in them.

"Noah ... sometimes I can't help but feel frustrated when I talk to you," Jonas says, his voice seems far away and Hanno knows that his story reminded him of something he has kept for years undisturbed. Hanno understands the feeling of confronting oneself when no one else is around, and it can be scarier. “You have no idea how lucky you are to have Elisabeth with you, even if she didn't reciprocate your feelings, which I'm sure isn't the case.”

Hanno wants to interrupt, but Jonas holds up a hand, shutting him down instantly. “Only you have not realized how you feel for each other, Claudia knows, even the old woman from the market has made some comments about it. It is not a secret, Noah, and the worst thing is that there is nothing wrong in your relationship for you to not decide to take the next step. Elisabeth does not share any blood ties with you and if you are going to tell me about the age difference, better not do it. She is already an adult and, in many ways, has shown more maturity than the two of us. It’s shameful that you decide to live like this, day after day just out of cowardice. You should know by now that none of us can assure that we will still be here tomorrow. We can have an idea of where our destination is going but we don’t know how we’re going to get there, much less in what conditions.”

“We have done things that condemn us and things that liberate us. We have killed to survive and you have killed to protect the only person I know that makes you feel whole and alive. I understand that you do not want to put her in danger, I understand your uncertainty but also something that you are not contemplating is that maybe your future self was alone because you decided to push her away. He preferred to live with the ‘what if´ rather than with something as tangible as having a person who complements you completely. I… If Martha lived… I wouldn't waste a minute, Noah, not out of fear, not out of anything."

Hanno swallows hard. Jonas looks at him with the same intensity that he saw when he handed over to his older self the letter that Martha had left for him. Martha was Jonas's Elisabeth. The name always between his lips, clouding his gaze, overshadowing his joy. And Martha was dead and Hanno knew that if he and Elisabeth were to part forever, it would be a fatal blow for him.

Elisabeth was there, alive, with her bad temper, her long hair, her contagious smile and her intense stares and Hanno felt that time was slipping through his fingers, watching her grow and mature. Always within reach and never his. Separated by a wall that Hanno had built, trying to protect them both from the love that could flourish in that infertile world. What if Jonas was right? What if the cause of Noah's demons was that he had driven Elisabeth away? Perhaps that was why Adam sent him, to change a small part of the future. Not only guarding the passage, but to listen to what fate itself whispered to him from the beginning of his journey: listen to love instead of ignoring it.

"I…" Hanno takes a deep breath and appreciates Jonas's infinite patience in those moments. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I know something bad happened to her because of me.”

Jonas sighs, he seems to be seeing something that is not quite there, something in another time, something that creeps into his unconscious and that he carries like an imaginary cross: “You don't know how much you can hurt a person who only wants to be loved in the same way in which she loves you.”

Like an enchantment, Hanno glimpses Elisabeth approaching. He pales and Jonas notices the change in the environment, looking over his shoulder and when he sees Elisabeth his face softens, waving his hand in her direction.

"Think about it, Noah, you can regret later for not doing something when you had the opportunity," his words sound like an omen and a chill runs down Hanno’s spine.

He doesn't answer because Elisabeth is already close enough, looking at him with something Hanno can't decipher. It is a scintillating gaze, the kind of gaze that Hanno sometimes discovers when he least imagines it and that leaves him wishing for something uncertain. A gaze of just a few seconds that dissolves like watercolor when she blinks. Hanno blushes and crouches, trying to hide his emotions. When he lifts his face again, Elisabeth has a smile on her lips.

_"I didn't know you were going to work here today,"_ she says, placing a soft kiss on Jonas's cheek, a habit Hanno despises but doesn't criticize for fear of the girl's anger. _“I was lucky to think of stopping by here after I didn't find you at the plant.”_

_"I should have warned you, Beth, forgive me."_ Hanno looks at her remorsefully and Elisabeth watches him for a few seconds, the atmosphere becoming tense.

" _Never mind, the point is, I found you,_ " she shrugs and Jonas looks at Hanno meaningfully.

_"Claudia isn't here,"_ Jonas signs awkwardly. _“We don't know when she will return.”_

Hanno sees Elisabeth nod as she removes her backpack, leaving it where Hanno and Jonas's things are stacked. When she takes off her coat, Hanno looks away, digging the shovel back down hard; trying to take all his fury out against the soil, loose for the copious rain. He hears Elisabeth grab a shovel and soon the three of them find themselves digging the necessary trenches. It is not a job that takes a long time and less between the three of them. The air is filled with the smell of wet dirt and Hanno steals glances from time to time at the figure of Elisabeth, noting the sweat that runs down her temple and the blonde hair that rebels out of the tight braid that she made that day.

He sees her lick her lips and a thought cross his mind, fleeting, unexpected and he almost said it out loud, words whispered through his half-open mouth: _I love you_. It is the start of the wick that lights up of its own accord; the spark continues on its way and the ‘ _I love you’_ in his mind becomes a mantra that repeats itself endlessly over and over again, taking revenge on the years Hanno kept it hidden for fear of his own feelings. The _‘I love you’_ become almost tangible and Hanno thinks that he can taste them and that each of them will taste like Elisabeth's lips.

It's a revelation and it's paradoxical because even though Hanno wasn't expecting it there is a sense of perfection in the moment, when he looks back on it. Digging the soil to make a home for the woman he loved and loves and will love. Even before he met her, united forever by fate, locked in the same labyrinth with the same red thread tangled throughout their bodies, finding happiness in just each other's company. Hanno loves Elisabeth and it doesn't matter that she doesn't feel the same, he thinks that this might be Paradise: finding that he can feel something so pure for someone who deserves absolute happiness.

_I love you_ ; he thinks again and this time Elisabeth looks up and their gazes met, both of them caught in a long moment that is only interrupted when Jonas, blessed Jonas, coughs to get Hanno's attention, who reluctantly averts his eyes from Elisabeth’s green ones.

"What do you want now, Kahnwald?" Hanno grunts and Jonas gives him a conspiratorial gesture.

"I think the trenches are finished so I'm going to rest a bit, now that Claudia isn't here." Hanno notices that Jonas is already wearing the coat and backpack that he carries everywhere.

Jonas was always a character by himself and again life surprises him with another revelation when he realizes that he would have liked to meet him in other kinder times, those that Elisabeth relates with so much affection. A Jonas without the sadness clouding his eyes; sincere, eager to continue living in a simple world, far from the pain and hatred that one day will consume him. They would have had a normal friendship, under normal circumstances, and both would face life with lighter hearts and more sincere words. Even so, and in the middle of that forest, Jonas is his best friend and he appreciates him as he did not appreciate someone in his time.

"Thank you for listening to me, Jonas," Hanno says, hoping his words are enough to project the affection he feels for him.

Jonas smiles and pats him on the shoulder, enough answer for Hanno and for the first time he does not watch with jealousy when Jonas approaches Elisabeth and says goodbye to her, first with signs and then with a kiss on the forehead.

They see him walk away and then Hanno returns to digging, aware that it is only Elisabeth and him and it is precisely what he wanted to avoid because of what happened the night before. Now they are not wrapped in the faint reddish color of the woodfire, nor the shadows that are portrayed on the walls of the cave, and Hanno isn’t engulfed in the unreal sensation that the night and alcohol gave. In an almost violent contrast, they are surrounded by trees, gray colors, humidity and cold that keeps him fully aware of every movement of his and Elisabeth’s bodies.

They look at each other again and this time Elisabeth rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she purses her lips.

" _Why are you acting so strange?_ " She asks and Hanno nearly chokes on his saliva.

“Me?” Hanno wants to bump his head with a tree but pretends to be brave and holds Elisabeth’s exasperated gaze.

_"Please, Hanno, you have to respect my intelligence a little,"_ Elisabeth says and Hanno swallows with difficulty, _"I know you better than anyone and I know something is wrong with you, don't make me feel like a child by asking you again."_

Hanno nods, ducking his head slightly, hiding behind his locks of dirty hair. How does he tell her everything he feels, thinks and even worse, wants? He is still afraid of losing her, of reaching the same point as his older counterpart: alone and full of regrets haunting him at night. Elisabeth deserves better than him and he can't condemn her to accept it. He knows her well enough to know that she would not bend her feelings to anyone, and he also knows that he would be the exception to the rule. Elisabeth would accept him because she trusts him and likes him, but Hanno doesn't want that. Hanno is greedy and wants Elisabeth to feel, think and want the same thing that he does and with the same intensity.

He's about to tell her that he's only embarrassed about his drunkenness of last night, when he feels Elisabeth taking his hands. When did she approached him? He looks up and she's so close he can feel her warm breath, he might sink into her big, clear green eyes, before Elisabeth, Lis, Beth, Eli, little fox, stands on her tiptoes and kisses him, sweet, on the lips.

Hanno feels like he can die in that instant. His body trembles, his heart is racing and his head is spinning. It is a touch that lasts a couple of seconds, eternal, blessed, a Paradise that becomes real and Hanno's heart and breath fail for a few moments. While he feels the warmth of Elisabeth's hands holding his, her soft and moist lips seem anchor him better than gravity.

He should not allow himself to corresponds the kiss but he does, slightly leaning towards her. Hanno lets himself be carried away by everything that is forbidden. There is nothing else that is not Elisabeth Doppler, who lets go of Hanno's hands and for a terrible moment, he thinks that she will break the blessed connection until he feels her wrap her arms around his neck. They merge into a kiss that is tender and passionate, that tastes infinitely better than what he imagined in his moments of weakness over the last few years. Hanno holds her by the waist, firm, and in other universes, they would be kissing in the rain, the drops would fall from her strands of hair and would seep between their lips, making everything more unreal.

In his universe, however, the kiss is awkward, sweet, perfect.

A kiss, on the foundations of what will be their new home. At that moment there is no time travel or divine particle. There is neither Adam nor Noah. There are only them, a man and a woman who decide to steal fragments from that post-apocalyptic world, mold it for their happiness, imagining that they can tame it at will, transform it into their own paradise.

When they part and Hanno looks Elisabeth in the eye, the decision is no longer even his. That afternoon, they kiss again, again and again, ecstatic at the new possibilities.

That afternoon, they decide to be happy.

**2028.**

Hanno wakes up with Elisabeth's hair in his face. It is a frosty winter morning and both apparently sought each other's warmth during the night. His arm is anchored around Elisabeth’s waist, who is still sleeping and Hanno smiles at light snoring.

He blinks and marvels when finds himself, again, in what is his reality.

The cold morning light seeps into the spaces that have not been fully covered and Hanno makes a mental note to do it later. Winter isn't as hard as the first ones after the apocalypse but it's still ruthless and Hanno doesn't want to risk catching a cold or letting Elisabeth get sick.

As a sign, the girl sighs in her sleep and frowns, before snuggling closer to Hanno's body.

The beginning of their relationship as a couple was not entirely conventional, but there is awkwardness and too much love in the story to impress Hanno most days. Progression in other circumstances could have been slower, but in their context that luxury did not exist so, completely according to their feelings and wishes, they had wasted no time. After the first kiss, perfect and unique, others followed, just as perfect and just as unique, memories Hanno treasured. Kisses that were given in the privacy of an almost desolate world and when Elisabeth stood on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around Hanno's shoulders, he didn't need anything else to live.

It was dangerous, recognizing his most human part because Hanno knew he was more susceptible to everything he had wanted to ignore although, he understood that it was inevitable, an impulse that Hanno sooner or later would not control in time. He always thought that he could put a stop to that relationship. He did not know if it was within the universal plan and just when he resolved to talk to Elisabeth about his concerns, she would smile at him, hugging him from behind, resting her head on his back and subjecting him to something more powerful than brute force: the harmony and peace that he felt run through his body and soul when he was with her.

How could his insecurities win over her?

The only thing that frightened him enough was his desire. The heat that originated in his abdomen and seemed to numb him, making his movements and emotions clumsy. He was trying to hide it from Elisabeth, worried that she would feel a nonexistent obligation. Hanno had barely made peace with his inner demons by the advancement of their relationship and even though his entire body screamed for something else, his mind was relentless on the subject.

When he felt that there was going to be a bodily reaction to Elisabeth's simple approach, he would take a deep breath and stand a few feet away, repeating Adam's words about emotions, destiny and desire over and over again. Yet sometimes his dreams were unrelenting. In that surreal world everything about Sic Mundus seemed irrelevant and he would always gave up when Elisabeth caressed his cheek or kissed his shoulder. His primitive self would take over and Elisabeth instead

of being terrified by the new outcome of events, would welcome him with something like challenge in her eyes.

He would woke up from those restless nights with the sweat running down his forehead, his breathing ragged and his body susceptible to any movement. On those occasions it was difficult to get out of Elisabeth's embrace without waking her up, but Hanno always succeeded. Then he would bathe in cold water and by the time she opened her eyes, he was free of any suspicious traces.

Hanno did not feel totally used to the closeness of a woman like Elisabeth and his body resented it, as at that very moment: she sighs and turns, and Hanno can see her neck and left shoulder uncovered, her skin appears white in the cold winter light and he can detail the way her chest rises and falls regularly. It's ridiculous and Hanno is no longer a teenager but that alone is enough to make his entire body react. He imagines having enough courage to approach and kiss her collarbone and the curvature where her neck meets her shoulder, imagines sliding his hand under the sweater, feeling the soft skin, finding the scars that have been inflected on her body throughout those years.

Hanno inhales shakily and slowly pulls away from Elisabeth, getting out of bed to quickly cover her with another extra blanket. He feels his body tensed up when he is so suddenly faced with the cold in the house, but that change in temperature helps him to start solving his main problem. He goes through his usual routine to handle such reactions and, true to his custom, by the time Elisabeth

stretches gracefully under the covers and opens her eyes, Hanno has served the leftovers from the day before and feels a jab of satisfaction as Elisabeth sniffs the air with interest.

" _Do you want me to heat the water?_ " Hanno says when Elisabeth gets up. He swallows hard and makes a superhuman effort not to look at her bare legs more than he should.

Elisabeth denies and approaches him, placing a soft kiss on his cheek and then, spontaneously, kissing him more firmly on the lips. Hanno would never have imagined that Elisabeth would be even more demanding than him but when he found out, it fit perfectly into what he already knew about her. He reciprocates the kiss, feeling his cheeks burn like a side effect that he has not been able to master.

_"I'll take a shower after breakfast,"_ Elisabeth says, when they part and she sits down at the table Hanno built for their new home. She puts a thick blanket on her legs and Hanno is grateful for the little miracles. _“Will Claudia appear today?”_

" _I don't know and again she didn't say anything to Jonas._ " Hanno knows his gestures are exasperated but he can't help feeling trapped at Claudia's whims.

Elisabeth rolls her eyes but says nothing and Hanno eats breakfast, forgetting about Claudia's lack of commitment and enjoying the moment.

_"We have to go to the market soon,"_ Elisabeth says, after her second bite _, "I think I can trade the hares for a bag of salt and a bottle of alcohol, and your admirer told me that hopefully, I can negotiate for a box of antibiotics."_

_"I don't know what fan you're talking about and very well, we'll go tomorrow after breakfast,"_ Hanno answers. _"If it doesn't snow."_

Actually, Hanno does know that the ‘fan’ Elisabeth talks about is one of the girls who settles in the market, but he avoids the topic because he would not like to encourage her in something that could hurt her in any way. Maybe it's narcissistic of him to think that he has such an effect on Elisabeth's feelings but he can't help himself. A dark part that he does not want to recognize, rejoices in being the possible cause of something as revealing as jealousy.

_"If you think it's going to snow, it will_ ," Elisabeth says, looking out of the only window they have and frowning thoughtfully. _“I think I'd better go in the afternoon to check that everything is okay with the plants. I've noticed that Jonas sometimes forgets to close the boxes and I don't want our accomplishments to be killed.”_

Hanno nods, laughing and together they clean the table. Then Elisabeth decides to take a bath and he takes the opportunity to cut more wood even though they have more than enough. He thinks that there is nothing wrong with being even more prepared and when he enters the cabin again, Elisabeth is brushing her hair with the gift that Hanno gave her years ago and the whole place smells like her. For a few moments he lets himself be carried away by the atmosphere and closes his eyes, breathing slowly.

When he opens them, Elisabeth looks at him curiously and Hanno gets close, to place a kiss on top of her head, wetting his lips with the moisture of her blond hair. He would like to have on hand the camera that Jonas gave Elisabeth for her last birthday, but he prefers not to disturb the intimacy and spontaneity of the moment and they stay that way, for a while. Hanno can almost hear Elisabeth's brain working a mile an hour and knows something is going to happen the moment he feels her sigh, taking Hanno's hand and turning to face him.

Her face is serious but he can see the nervousness in the way she tries not to purse her lips and to help her say whatever she wants, Hanno gently caresses the back of her hand. Elisabeth looks at him and after a few minutes, seems to make up her mind.

She leans in to kiss him and Hanno immediately experiences something different in the air around them. His judgment begins to cloud when Elisabeth's breath brushes his face and they both close their eyes, opening their lips slightly to make way for the tip of their tongues. Elisabeth holds onto Hanno, pulling him by the lapel of his shirt. There is something hungry about her that Hanno fully recognizes and his own need begins to awaken, making its way through his conscious thoughts and settling into his body.

Elisabeth gasps into the kiss, when Hanno caresses her lower lip with the tip of his tongue and he wants to take her by the waist and deepen whatever he has to deepen. He feels like Elisabeth is almost sitting on his lap and for a moment, she moves and there is a pressure on his crotch. A chill runs through him and all the alarms in his head go off. He walks away a bit, taking Elisabeth by the shoulders to try to put distance between them. She struggles, pushing against it and her ragged breathing, her red lips and flushed cheeks almost subdue him, but with incredible force of will, Hanno manages to separate her and the two look at each other. Green eyes glaring at him with reproach and fury and Hanno is about to ask her to excuse him when she abruptly stands up, her hair creating a trail behind her.

_"If you didn't feel the same way about me, why did you reciprocate the kiss in the first place?"_ Elisabeth begins, and Hanno can't help the confusion that seeps into his blue eyes. He feels an emptiness in his chest and swallows with difficulty but does not interrupt Elisabeth, who continues, still looking into his eyes. _“I know I'm not what you would have wanted for your life, I know that maybe I'm not even worth enough for you to notice me in another way, but why then did you keep kissing me_?” Elisabeth stops for a few seconds and Hanno watches her fight the tears that threaten to fall at any moment. His heart breaks and he's about to lean in to comfort her when she continues. _“I need to know, Hanno. I need to know if you want and desire the same. I need you to tell me that you are not with me out of pity. I have tried to ignore my desires but it becomes more and more difficult and I am not like you... I cannot be content with just a few kisses and less when I know that maybe you don't even do it because you really want it…”_

Hanno is speechless, his mind blank and his heart pounding at an alarming rate. He tries to go over and over again what Elisabeth has just told him and also what remains implicit, hanging like specks of dust between them. In the pale light, Hanno finds himself discovering the demons that Elisabeth has chosen not to share for who knows how many months, or worse, years. He knows that she is never afraid to vocalize her thoughts so he never expected to exist so many things that she had not said, keeping words under lock and hiding the key somewhere out of Hanno's watchful eye.

How can Elisabeth think that she is not enough, when Hanno is the one who does not deserve even the affection that she has for him? How can she think that what leads him to continue this new facet of their relationship is pity? How Hanno can make a mistake like that, in so many important ways?

It is revealing and confusing at the same time. He is afraid of what she has not said or demonstrated and is ultimately afraid of what it may mean to him. Failing Elisabeth like that is something Hanno would never have done on purpose and he remembers Jonas's words, how painful it can be for someone not to be loved with the same intensity that is expected.

_"Beth, I…"_ Hanno starts, trying to sort the chaos in his head. _“How can you think all that? How can you even imagine it?”_

Elisabeth batts her damp eyelashes and dries her tears abruptly: _"When have you kissed me on your own? When have you approached me in the same way I approached you?"_

Hanno feels anger creeping up his throat, doesn't Elisabeth know who she's dealing with? The woman stares at him and in one of her outbursts, she turns around, walking steadily to the door. Hanno stands up quickly and takes Elisabeth's arm, without hurting her but firm enough for her to understand the message: she is not going anywhere without first clarifying the situation.

_"No, we will stay here until we sort this out and this time I won't let you do what you usually do when you get impatient."_ Elisabeth tries to free herself from Hanno's grip and glares at him when she can't. Hanno's frustration burns through his body and he easily pushes Elisabeth to the side of the bed, keeping her cornered. He makes eye contact with her and when he makes sure that she is not going to escape, continues: _“You tell me that you are not what I would have wanted and you do not know how much your words hurt me. It hurts me that you have not yet realized that the only thing I do, my only purpose in life is your happiness and it would have been very easy to ignore my feelings, to continue being a friend in your eyes, a partner, but I could not fulfill what it was expected of me. I couldn't do it because the love I feel towards you is greater than anything Sic Mundus can promise or give me. You reproach me for what in your eyes is indifference but I have only tried to protect you even from my own wishes. You know what I have done, the sins I have committed, you know everything about me and still you are by my side but I know that it is not what you deserve._

_"Do you think I would have wanted a life in my time, with another woman by my side? Do you think I was destined for someone other than you? You don't realize that I have belonged to you since before we were born. We are united by time and space; I have loved you before I met you and I have wanted you with the same or even more intensity than you could possibly wanted me. How can I touch you knowing that you deserve more? Knowing that my hands full of blood can leave traces on your body and your soul? How can I know that I am the person you expect me to be? You are unfair, Elisabeth, for believing something that is just assumption. You are unfair to doubt the love I have professed and shown you, since I saw you in the bunker and until my heart stops beating."_

He looks at her and feels totally exposed. Feels that there is nothing between them, that she has him in her hands and that that confession was more compromising than when he told her about what had happened with his father. Hanno had never vocalized his feelings because he thought there was no reason to do so. After all, he never imagined that Elisabeth believed him capable of kissing her out of commitment, but... hadn't he thought the same of her?

With fear, anxiety and immense love, Hanno approaches and Elisabeth holds his crystal blue gaze. They look at each other for seconds that seem like hours and slowly, Hanno puts a hand on Elisabeth's neck, carefully coming near to kiss her, trembling, on the lips. She remains motionless and finally, Hanno shares the words he should have said since they kissed that first time, on the foundations of the cabin.

" _I love you,_ " he signs carefully, putting into his movements all the love he has cultivated for nearly eight years.

Elisabeth gasps and they both meet halfway, kissing almost desperately. Hanno feels how the tears he stopped all this time, begin to fall without permission and Elisabeth kisses the corner of his eyes, rising on her tiptoes. Then she continues kissing him, ignoring his lips and searching for his jaw. Hanno tightens his grip on Elisabeth's waist and she moans, her warm breath hitting the sensitive skin on his neck

Everything seems to transform from one second to another.

Hanno grabs Elisabeth's hair, urging her to look at him and when he kisses her, he does so with purpose. And he has always been a man of purpose and resolution and when he lightly bites Elisabeth's lip, his intentions are laid on the table, awaiting her decision.

There is an instant, in which they share a meaningful look and Hanno had not seen as much sensuality as the one Elisabeth represents in those moments. They kiss over and over again, stealing their breath, biting the unspoken words, licking each other's tenderness. Hanno feels her press herself against his body, feels the firm breasts and the hands that until that moment were on his neck, now caressing Hanno's arms and his whole body reacts.

He is carried away by instinct and slides his hands under Elisabeth's sweater, touching the bare skin of her lower back and slowly descending until he hits the waistband of Elisabeth's pants, who gasps and closes her eyes tightly, allowing herself to be touched by Hanno's greedy hands.

Because that's how it has always been. Hanno wants all of her. He wants to make her fall apart in his arms. He wants every moan, every sigh, every gasp that leaves Elisabeth's lips, he wants tears of ecstasy and sobs of pleasure. He wants to etch himself so intimately in her mind, soul and body that nothing but him exists. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, always.

Only him.

He undresses her carefully and Elisabeth is pliant in his hands, biting her lip and moaning when Hanno kisses her again, along her jaw, down her neck, sucking lightly. Hanno wants to paint a canvas, every little bite on Elisabeth's white skin turns bright red and it's the most exciting thing he's ever seen. He kisses her breasts and gently licks her erect nipples, while his fingers caress her waist, squeezing lightly as she shudders with pleasure.

There is a pause, in which Hanno sits up to look into her eyes, his fingers right on the button of her pants. A silent question that Elisabeth answers, kissing him anxiously. Her hands struggle to remove his shirt and Hanno helps her, undressing in one quick motion. They look back at each other, green eyes against blue, and Hanno thinks this is all familiar.

_I've been through this already_ , his mind whispers to him and it gives Hanno enough peace of mind to know what's next.

They finish undressing, struggling against the clothes, laughing at the inherent tender awkwardness. Hanno strokes Elisabeth's hair, before she pulls it aside to be fully exposed to his eager gaze. Hanno drinks the image, totally enthralled by the shock of having Elisabeth naked in front of him. His erection responds enthusiastically and gasps when Elisabeth, inexperienced, doubtful, perfect, touches him, caressing him curiously and glancing at his eyes from time to time, surely to confirm that Hanno cannot resist her touch.

And, how could he do it?

They both collapse on the bed, again united in a kiss that tastes like fire, like the precipice to which they are about to fall. Carefully, Elisabeth leans back, her green eyes expectant and sincere. With a demonstration of bravery, she spreads her legs to make room for Hanno and the movement makes him nervous, his head spinning at the thought of what is to come.

He settles down, still looking into her eyes and trying not to hurt her in any way. He kisses her once, twice, three times, tender and chaste on the lips; a contradiction with what follows below. First, he slowly brings his fingers closer to Elisabeth's wetness, gently sliding his fingertip and feeling his cheeks flush. Trying to prepare her, he moves his finger carefully around the clit, watching in wonder and surprise as Elisabeth moans loudly and her legs shake against Hanno's sides. Curious, he averts his gaze from Elisabeth's for the first time and concentrates on his

movements, his entire body tense as he listens the sounds of pleasure from Elisabeth, whose fists are clenched against the sheets. Then Hanno begins to carefully insert his index finger, using the wetness, slowly and again watching for any sign of discomfort from her.

There is no trace of anything but pleasure and Hanno understands, after a few seconds, that he can enter a second finger. His entire being vibrates with anticipation but he forces himself to be patient and soon Elisabeth pushes her hips against Hanno's fingers, a movement that clouds his mind, everything going steam for a moment. He pushes a little harder and Elisabeth takes his arm, staring at him with narrow, bright eyes.

There are no words, only understanding that arises when two people blend perfectly. Hanno nods, swallowing hard and licking his lips in a gesture that he hopes isn't desperate. He carefully guides his erection and sees Elisabeth, who nods, her forehead beaded with sweat and her lips red as apples. Slow and steady, he thrusts into Elisabeth's wet cavity, closing his eyes tightly as he feels the walls of her womanhood suffocate him. He pauses many times, allowing her to adjust to the unfamiliar intrusion.

Hanno caresses her neck with his lips, strokes her hair and cheeks. He caresses her lips and waist. Touches, more reverently, the scars that show her hard life at that apocalyptic world and runs his hands down her long white legs. He also caresses her existence and when he is fully introduced, they both moan in delight, ecstatic. Hanno takes a deep breath, not moving too much, waiting for Elisabeth to signal that he can continue. She has her eyes firmly closed, breathing slowly, licking her lips, and Hanno fondly sees the blush on her cheeks.

When she opens her eyes, squeezing his body with the legs that she has tangled around his waist, Hanno feels like he may lose his mind. He charges slow and deep and feels that the connection, the knot of the red thread that has been tangled around them since the universe was born, grows stronger, unable to break, enduring despite adversity.

They hold, kiss and complete each other. They become one, an anomaly in that world that is not made for the consummation of a bond like theirs. That world was destruction, loneliness, coldness, a punishment for the humans who still roamed that wild land. Against all odds, the same world, in those moments when Hanno and Elisabeth make love for the first time, becomes Paradise. It becomes the promises fulfilled, the wishes satisfied, the wounds healed.

The love found.

Hanno leans over, feeling his body burn, kissing Elisabeth on the lips and only separates from her to whisper ‘I love you’, over and over again against her skin and when she shudders again, she squeezes his left arm and scratches lightly his right shoulder. She exhales a gasp of pleasure and satisfaction and it's enough for him to find his own pleasure too, feeling his body contract and he clings to the woman he loves with desperation.

They are one, without end and without beginning. The start of a new destiny for both, beyond the death of their parents, the loss of their sisters, the sins committed, the sadness experienced, the contained anger; beyond any consequence or damage that time has made them pay. It’s just them. Hanno and Elisabeth, Elisabeth and Hanno, an infinity that will repeat itself, one cycle after another.

Without separating from her and still breathing hard, Hanno rests his forehead on Elisabeth's, sharing sighs and promises of love. Tangled with each other, with the sheets knotted between their bodies, there is no Paradise more real than that and Hanno closes his eyes, feeling a peace that he has not felt for years.

He has no idea that those are just stolen moments and in Elisabeth’s arms, he is blessedly ignorant that in the following years he will lose unborn sons or daughters, his only friend, the daughter who he will come to love more than his life and the woman who has always been the reason for his existence. He will wear out, consumed in despair and betrayal, always looking for a piece that will be in plain sight, hidden from his gaze that will turn cold and cruel.

He will not understand until years later that they were just pawns on the chessboard and only until his last broken breaths will he understand that, even so, his life was worth living because Elisabeth Doppler was in it.

**Author's Note:**

> I am really proud that this is my longest fic yet. I'm thankful to all the girls in the Noahbeth discord, for being so supportive and for all the good moments. I hope you enjoyed to read this as much as I did writing it.  
> Reviews are always welcome. Hugs!


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